


i've got [want] you under my skin

by Skyson



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Mutual Pining, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyson/pseuds/Skyson
Summary: Surviving an alternate universe can be a real eye-opener. Or just really, really confusing.Maybe a little of both.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My first time writing this pairing, this fic came to me one morning while I sat outside on the deck with my tea, and I decided to write it down. There is a probability that the characters may be a little OOC, what with my limited Buffy knowledge. Please be kind, Buffy fandom. I am new here though my age should say otherwise, but I've adored the Watcher and the Slayer from the get go.
> 
> Alternate Universe, timeline dubious. The Hellmouth is closed, but Sunnydale still exists. Anya and Tara are both still kickin' it. Let's pretend the year is somewhere in the middle between Buffyverse post-closing of the Hellmouth, and the recent years of Marvel canon. The plotty stuff is more of a catalyst than anything else - this fic entirely exists because it wouldn't leave me alone until I smashed certain two faces together. POV flip-flops between Buffy and Giles. Multiple chapters, completed upon initial posting.

* * *

 

“He’s still here somewhere, I know it,” Buffy insisted, out of breath. They’d had to push their way against the flow of evacuating students and employees, and managed to tumble into an empty classroom. Buffy’s senses were on high alert; this guy was way more dangerous than her usual vampire or demon, and from the threat they’d managed to uncover - well, honestly, he was way out of their league. But they were the only ones who knew the truth, and could even hope to fight back. It was no doubt a losing battle, but she had to do what she could. She refused to just give up and run away and wait for inevitable death to come.

And, of course, her friends had chosen to follow her. She wasn’t able to persuade them otherwise. Now the entire school was trying to scramble out of the only two doors that they’d managed to unlock, and police and local military were amassing outside the building in a futile effort to defend the innocent.

The real world didn't truly have a clue what was going on. It was, once again, up to Buffy and the Scooby Gang to save the day.

 

———

 

"See, I _told_  you Chemistry was evil!" Xander complained as he fought off a freshman student that was trying to claw his eyes out.

It was the chemistry teacher - Dr. Brand - causing all this trouble. Buffy's Spidey-senses had told her weeks ago that he wasn't just a chemistry teacher. After a full week of Giles believing that she was just trying to get out of homework, Buffy had finally persuaded Willow to do some spying in her own class with Dr. Brand. She hadn't noticed anything odd, but an offhand mentioning of a gaudy ring had piqued Giles' interest and he'd begun digging into his books.

And now here they were, fending off fellow students that Dr. Brand was now somehow making do his bidding.

Buffy managed to knock the freshman unconscious, careful not to leave any lasting damage once the young girl woke up in her right mind again. Hopefully, she would wake up in her right mind again... Looking down at the girl warily, Buffy came to a decision. The Scoobies wouldn't like it, but by now she didn't care. Their safety was more important than whether or not they were angry at her.

"Come on! He's this way!" Buffy announced, leading the group in another direction down the hall. They followed without question, because she was the Slayer, and they trusted her.

Giles, of course, caught on first.

"Buffy..."

The doors to the loading docks were just at the end of the hall, but at their mentor's tone, the group hesitated. She sighed, and spoke intently but honestly to them,

"Dr. Brand is taking control over people at random. I can't even _begin_  to think about having to fight any one of you if he brainwashes you. You have to leave."

"And what, you'll fight him on your own?" Willow scoffed. "Fat chance. You know the best plan we've got means having enough people to distract him while you take the ring from him."

Buffy figured it'd be hardest to persuade her best friend and her Watcher. Xander and Anya both seemed to agree with the sentiment about fighting against a Slayer.

"I'd like to avoid getting knocked out by a Slayer punch." Xander admitted hesitantly, and Buffy gave him a quick, small smile.

"Buffy - "

"This isn't up for debate." Buffy interrupted her sister firmly. Dawn narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together in a frustrated, thin line, but she surprisingly didn't continue to argue. "Come on, time is of the essence." Buffy gave them all her most intent Slayer expression that she knew how to make, and they begrudgingly stepped passed her and toward the doors.

She covered their backs as they slipped out to the loading docks, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone paying too close attention to them. Dr. Brand had been occasionally taking mental control over people as they tried to leave the building, instead forcing them to hunt down Buffy and her group and attempt to incapacitate them. Buffy did her best to react non-lethally to these people - they couldn’t help what Brand was making them do - but they were a danger to her friends. Thankfully, it seemed that the young girl she'd pried off of Xander had been the last to find them.

She breathed a sigh in relief when she saw the motorcycles still abandoned in their parking spaces, and mentally thanked her Watcher for training her to be aware of any and all exit strategies when entering a building. And, for the fact that enough people at this school drove motorcycles to school to warrant their own special parking area.

“What?!” Willow exclaimed. “We can’t all - ”

“You just need to get out of town, okay? Just pile on as best you can balance and get out of here.” Buffy interrupted, keeping a worried eye on the door behind them. She turned back to see Giles climbing on one of the bikes with practiced ease, much more smoothly than Xander managed. The juxtaposition of the act, with his librarian attire, made her briefly wonder if this was all nothing more than some absurd dream. Buffy tried not to stare too curiously at her Watcher - now was _so_  not the time to start analyzing her conflicted emotions for him. Anya climbed on behind Xander, and Willow behind Giles.

“Dawn, climb in front, here,” Giles guided Buffy’s sister to sit in front of him. He then pointed out for Xander how to start his motorcycle before kick-starting his own. Giles lifted his gaze to make eye-contact with Buffy, and as strong as he was being for the Scoobies, she could see his worry for her in his eyes.

Without another moment’s hesitation, she hurried forward and put her hand against his chest, feeling how hard his heart was hammering, her adrenalin renewing and coursing through her as she filled her senses with proof of his life. She curled her fingers around his tie and pressed a firm and lingering kiss on his cheek. It was a little scruffy; shaving the past couple of days hadn't been so important once they realized what the chemistry teacher really was.

“Take care of them, Giles.” She told him earnestly, pulling back just far enough to give him a serious look. His gaze was soft and warm and serious all at once, and it made her want to go with them, but she stepped back until her hand fell away from his chest. His brow furrowed as his eyes grew wet with emotion, but he swallowed and nodded at her.

Maybe, just maybe, they could find some place to lay low and avoid Brand’s main attack. Buffy glanced toward each of her friends individually, letting them know silently that she loved them. But she knew she couldn’t waste anymore time, so without another word she turned and ran back into the building. She heard the motorcycles accelerate away into the distance, and she smiled grimly. She had to believe that they would be safe, with Giles. That they would keep Giles safe, in return.

She focused on the task at hand, and paused at an intersection in the hallway, focusing her senses so she could find Brand again. His evil energy was overwhelming, everywhere - it was hard to focus when he was spreading his power amongst all these other innocent people.

 

———

 

The end result of her traipse through the hallways would be a hell of a lot of concussions, but it was better than dead, she figured. She carefully pointed the way out of the building to those who were simply roaming, lost, though it wasted a lot of time, and she briefly lamented ordering her friends to escape. Having her Watcher by her side would've been a great help, and although that was his duty anyway, she wouldn't be able to focus completely on Brand if she was too busy being worried about Giles' safety.

Anyway, with his luck, Brand would take control of him and then she'd have to give _him_  a concussion.

"Think of the devil and he shall appear," Buffy muttered to herself, when she slid around a corner and literally ran into Giles.

"Buffy!" He grabbed onto her shoulders to steady her after she bounced back from his chest.

"What are you doing here?" She demanded, gripping his arms. "Where's the gang? Why in the world did you come back?"

"I couldn't leave you, Buffy." _Not again_. That part went unsaid, but she could see the sincerity in his gaze. "Anya and Xander have got them, they'll be safe."

"Damn it, Giles, as pissed as I am, it's an honest relief that you're here," She admitted, giving him a quick and hard hug. He returned it wholeheartedly, and then she pulled away so she could keep her focus. "Come on, I think I know where he is. It's hard to distinguish from the people he's kept in the building to use as his cronies, but..." She trailed off and gestured her hand for Giles to follow after her.

She turned to lead the way down the hall, and didn't notice how Giles dipped his chin as he stepped after her, the gentle smile on his face twisting into a snarling grin. He lifted his arm and slammed his elbow into the back of Buffy’s head, causing her to immediately collapse into a heap on the ground, unconscious.

“Humph. Love makes you weak.” Giles scolded, his form shimmering into that of Dr. Brand.

 

———

 

Giles sucked in a sharp, gasping breath, barely managing to keep the motorcycle on course as every cell within him screamed at him to turn around.

Something was very, very wrong.

He pulled into the next parking lot that they saw, and while Xander followed him, the younger man looked incredulous as he pulled up alongside and watched Giles help Dawn off the bike, and then told Willow to hop off too.

“What? What is it? We can’t be far enough away,” Dawn questioned, her eyes still darting around for danger. They didn’t know how far Brand’s control could reach. Anyone around them could be a threat.

“It’s Buffy,” Willow noted, peering at Giles carefully, at least half-understanding the wild look in his eyes. “It’s the Watcher thing. Buffy is hurt.”

“She said to leave no matter what happened,” Xander pointed out. “That it didn’t matter what happened to her - if we go back, she’ll kill us herself. And I believed her threat!”

“Take one of these cars. Keep driving north. Just go as far as you can.” Giles put his hand on Willow’s shoulder. “We’ll meet you.”

Willow gave him a sad smile. No, they wouldn’t. If Buffy was going to die, then Giles was, too. She didn’t have to do any magical readings of him to see that.

“This is a suicide mission,” Dawn insisted angrily, but Giles straddled his motorcycle once more, anyway. “We can’t go without you! We can’t lose you _and_  my sister!”

“I can’t go without Buffy.” Giles admitted. “And I won’t. I'm not leaving her behind again.” He kickstarted the engine and peeled away, drowning out anything else they might've said.


	2. Chapter 2

When Giles returned to the school, there were still some stragglers meandering the halls, disoriented. They were no doubt suffering lingering effects from being mind-controlled by Brand, and Giles did his best to point them in the right direction, but they were not his focus. The police that were now clearing the halls could take care of these people. He needed to keep clear from the authorities and find Buffy... or Brand. Whichever came first.

“Giles!” Buffy’s voice sounded from the end of the hall he’d just turned down, and he came to a halt as she rushed toward him. “You came back!”

He narrowed his eyes at her joyous reaction, having expected something more of the argumentative, possibly violent sort of reunion, but he returned her embrace nonetheless.

“Of course I came back. I can’t leave you, Buffy. I never will. Not again.” He admitted, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. She squeezed him tighter, but didn’t otherwise respond to his words.

“Come on, I know where he is,” She pulled away and started to hurry back down the hall, but Giles grabbed her arm and urged her to wait for a moment.

“What’s your plan? We can’t just run up to him and get into a fist fight. Not if he has those stones on hand. We should devise a new distraction,” With just the two of them, the old plan wouldn't work.

“They make him all-powerful, Giles, not all-knowing. If we can catch him by surprise, take the stones from him before he can use them again,”

"Buffy, that isn't a plan," He shook his head, and she frowned deeply at him, tugging her arm from his grasp.

"Do you have a suggestion?" She asked pointedly, and his expression grew pained.

"Yes. Leave with me, let's go. Perhaps we can find someplace safe,"

"Giles." She interrupted, her tone gentler than before. She touched his forearm carefully. "I'm the Slayer. I can't just leave and let the world end."

"If you die, my world is going to end, nonetheless." Giles admitted. Her expression softened, and she stepped closer, reaching up to cradle his face between her hands. He tilted his head down a little to make it easier for her, deeply touched by her physical affection, rare as it was.

"... If I have to die, then I see no better way than to go out with my Watcher by my side."

He furrowed his brow slightly at her phrasing. Her words touched him to his soul, but the way she said them... wasn't exactly Buffy-like. He'd expected her to make some crude joke perhaps, or something else to dissuade the heaviness between them.

He considered Brand's sphere of influence. What if the madman had mind-controlled her, too, and this was a trick? Well... go big or go home, as they say. He put a Ripper smirk on his face, carefully rested his hands against her waist, and drawled,

"You know it always makes me horny when you say things like that."

He held his breath, awaiting the expected shock and quite possible slap to come his way, but it never did.

Instead, she smirked in return, and rubbed her thumbs against his cheekbones, and tilted her face so closely to his that he couldn't breathe again even if he'd wanted to.

"If we survive this, let's revisit this rather kinky moment later, shall we?" She suggested. He nodded hesitantly, and she gave him another smile before letting him go and stepping back from him. "Come on,"

“Al- alright," Giles cleared his throat, "lets g-go." He straightened and gestured Buffy to lead the way. His skin burned from her touch, and his heart ached that their tender reunion hadn't been real. There was no way.

Just as she turned, he reached out and grasped her arms back behind her, trapping them with one of his arms while he wrapped the other around her neck.

“Giles - What - ” She struggled slightly in his grasp. He tightened his chokehold, and then she really started struggling, but it wasn’t Slayer strength. That proved to him further that this wasn't really Buffy. “Giles!” She tried to beg, using Buffy's voice to dissuade him, but it was so unlike Buffy that he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes until he couldn’t hear her anymore, until she’d stopped struggling for a good minute.

He's trained with her for years. The real Buffy would've had him on his ass within five seconds. Brand's mind-control either didn't transfer as far as the Slayer's abilities went, or, this was someone else transformed to appear as Buffy.

“Forgive me,” He murmured anyway, easing her down to the ground before he began to search her pockets. There - right pocket, a large gaudy ring that was nothing like what Buffy would normally wear. He tugged it free and gazed at it for a moment. One large stone was surrounded by five others; Giles had seen it before, on Brand’s hand. If she had this with her, that either meant that she'd had contact with Brand and he still managed to control her, or that this was Brand himself.

Either way, it wasn’t a good sign.

Giles looked down at Buffy’s body, and glowered deeply before slipping the ring on his own hand. He then picked her up, cradling her against him as he carried her toward Dr. Brand's chemistry classroom. Whether this was truly Buffy or not, Giles couldn’t help but revel in the familiarity of holding her against his chest.

He hoped Brand's "headquarters" could give him some more information.

When he stepped across the threshold into the destroyed classroom, he froze immediately.

Dr. Brand was standing nearby one of the overturned lab tables, where Buffy was slouched on the floor against the tabletop, looking worse for wear.

Giles glanced down worriedly to the woman in his arms. She'd had the ring, which was quite telling, but he had no idea how to tell for sure who was who.

Brand whirled around to face Giles, his eyes narrowing as he noticed the body in Giles' arms. Then he looked concerned.

"Did you kill him?" Brand asked carefully, doing his best not to sound too worried.

"So this is Brand, then," Giles surmised, settling the unconscious Buffy onto the floor. He wiggled his finger at the Brand standing, a warning that he now wore the ring, and Brand took a terrified step away from him.

"I didn't touch her - he just told me to keep an eye on her! I didn't hurt her," The man babbled, and Giles fiddled with the ring as he considered how it actually worked.

"How do I reveal who you really are?" He demanded, pointing at Brand. Before he could respond, his form shimmered into that of a woman - the biology teacher, who's own classroom was across the hall. "Huh." Giles mused, looking back at his hand. He then pointed toward the unconscious Buffy, and sure enough, she shimmered into Dr. Brand.

"I didn't realize," The other teacher was crying, now. "I didn't realize what he really was. He tricked me."

"He tricked all of us." Giles glowered. "Get out of this building before I change my mind."

She nodded and bolted, and Giles' next action was to grab a broken piece of chalk from the floor and draw a containment diagram around Brand's unconscious form. As soon as that was finished, Giles slid to his knees beside his real Buffy, gingerly brushing her hair away from her battered face.

There was so much blood.

"Dear one," He murmured, and her eyes fluttered open, though barely.

"Giles," She sighed, and then released a single sob.

"I know, I know," He soothed, his face contorted with both empathy for her pain and rage against it, as he skimmed his hands over her body as lightly as he could. The cuts and bruises on her face were nasty but manageable, especially thanks to her Slayer healing that would hopefully kick in soon. Her right shoulder was dislocated, and needed setting soon. The way she cradled her arm against her side suggested cracked or broken ribs.

She honestly didn’t look the worst that Giles has seen before, but nevertheless he was pissed. He managed to withhold his trembling fury as he set Buffy's shoulder, and the yelp of pain she released cut through him.

"Easy, easy," He soothed, helping her to sit as comfortably as possible with her back against the tabletop. He brushed his thumb against her unharmed cheek, and she reached up to grasp his wrist. Her grip was not that strong, and he worried that she would pass out, soon.

"I should've... should've known he wasn't you." She mumbled, needing to take a moment to turn her head and spit a little blood onto the ground. Giles hoped that it was from biting her tongue or a loose tooth, and not blood coughed up from her lungs. "His eyes were all wrong."

Giles froze, holding his breath as his ears began to ring.

"He pretended to be me?" He asked carefully, his voice barely a whisper. "For how long?"

She didn't answer, but looked away from him again, another tear falling down her cheek.

"Buffy, for how long?" Giles asked desperately, resisting the urge to grab her and force her to look at him. He didn't want to hurt her any further.

"Don't know," She admitted softly; he had to strain to hear her. "He somehow found out the real you came back to the school," She caught her breath, her ribs no doubt aching fiercely, "Changed Ms. Brooks to look like him, changed himself to look like me. Left." She met his eyes again, and he couldn't keep the horror from his expression.

"He tortured you, while wearing my face." Giles realized in a strangled tone.

"I knew it wasn't you," Buffy assured him, as if he were the one that needed comforting now.

Giles couldn't breathe, couldn't see, was barely aware as he pushed himself back from her and onto his feet once more. He snarled to himself, whipping his glasses off of his face and tossing them to the side. He didn't want to see Buffy watching him through what he was about to do. His fury coursed through him like hot lightning; burning, electrifying, and it was as if a switch had been flipped inside of him. He turned toward Brand, and with a flick of his wrist, suddenly the man was conscious and clear-headed enough to sit up and scoot as far away from Giles as he could.

With the containment field around him, it wasn't that far, and Giles stepped closer. This was not a descent into Ripper - this was how he imagined Oz might've felt during a full moon. The monster tore its way out of him, immediately and unflinchingly, exploding free after being restrained for so long.

"You're not human," Ripper began conversationally, inspecting his fingernails as he paced slowly around Brand's invisible prison. "Figured that out. We also know you planned on destroying this city, taking it all over, creating your own little army. Why?"

Brand snorted.

"You are small and petty. So self-absorbed. You humans always think you are the center of every universe."

"Every universe?" Ripper repeated. He shrugged off his jacket; it was too hot, and restricted his movement more than he liked. He casually picked up one of the over-turned stools as he passed it, and hefted it with a hand on one of the legs, surmising its weight. "You're from another universe. Not a demon?"

Most of the information they'd researched earlier had been about the stones themselves; Brand was still much of a mystery.

Brand snorted again, and Ripper swung the metal stool without warning. It cracked against Brand's face with a satisfying thunk, and blood flew from Brand's mouth, probably along with a tooth or two as well.

"Oh, good. You do bleed." Ripper noted with satisfaction. Brand had made his Slayer bleed - he would get his due.

"You are all the same" Brand scowled, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "Blinded by love, blinded by revenge," He slipped his hand into his pocket, but then froze.

Ripper smiled widely. A pure Ripper smile; the stuffy librarian wasn't even in the car anymore, much less riding backseat.

"Looking for this?" He taunted, waving his fingers at Brand.

For the first time, Brand finally looked truly nervous, maybe even scared, and Ripper's blood hummed in his veins.

"You made a mistake, pretending to be Buffy." Ripper commented. "Pretending to be _me_. There are lines one simply shouldn't cross," He clicked his tongue in derision.

"Giles..." Buffy warned painfully, but he ignored her for a moment. Now was not the time to hold back, to be merciful.

"Couldn't find much in the books," Ripper explained as he resumed his lackadaisical strolling around Brand. "I know these stones are powerful, I even know what they're called. Don't really know what they do, though." He glanced down at Brand for a moment. "Other than your mind control voodoo. And the polyjuice thing."

"Harry Potter?" Buffy wondered incredulously, her breath wheezing.

"I don't live under a rock, love," Ripper informed her with a roll of his eyes, his accent dipping further into that of his childhood.

"You are a child playing with things beyond your understanding," Brand scolded. "And you will get yourself killed."

Ripper pretended to take that into consideration, and then shrugged and grinned rebelliously.

"So long as I take you with me."

"Giles!"

"Calm down, Slayer." Ripper ordered. "Before you break another rib." He couldn't interrogate properly if he was too worried about her hurting herself.

If these stones could brainwash people, perhaps he could make Brand believe that he was being torn apart, even when he really wasn't. Psychological torture; something like the man had done to his Slayer. That sounded like proper payback, to him.

With a casual wiggle of his fingers in Brand's direction, he tilted his head curiously as Brand immediately began to writhe and scream. Fascinating! It even looked to Ripper that Brand was truly being torn apart. Ripper was seeing his arm rip from his socket, at the same time that he wasn't. It was as if two moments were existing side-by-side at the same time.

He ended the moment, and Brand lay collapsed on the floor, his body seemingly in one piece without a scratch, though he was heaving for breath and sweating profusely.

"You're torturing me over a world that isn't even real!" Brand laughed at him, sounding half-crazed. He was trying to act like he was still in control, but it was obvious that he was in extreme pain.

Ripper narrowed his eyes dangerously.

"A world that isn't real?" He repeated questioningly, but Brand didn't respond further.

Ripper spent the next untold amount of time torturing Brand in various ways, making new discoveries about the power of the stones as he went. And, eventually, discovering more-or-less the full story.

This world that they were living - that, according to their memories, they've lived their entire life - wasn't actually the original world. Brand - who was in reality was a Titan, called Thanos - destroyed the entire world and recreated it from scratch, in his opinion of a perfect world. He had enemies, in the original world - enemies that he didn't allow to exist in this world. And while he had gotten rid of these "Avengers" and their brothers-in-arms, he hadn't known about Buffy. It had just been his luck that he'd managed to hide himself within the same town where she lived.

"I would have never..." Thanos, still in human form, gasped for air between broken ribs. "guessed that... such a tiny woman could pose such a - such a threat to me," He laughed in derision at himself, and then groaned in pain. "That she would have someone like you, defending her."

"Every hero needs a bad guy to do the dirty work for her." Ripper snarled, a tone of pride in his voice as he held his palm out toward Thanos one last time.

"Ripper! Wait!" Buffy cried out before he could do anything else, and he hesitated, turning his gaze toward her. "We figured it out. We know what he's done. He can't hurt anyone anymore."

"He hurt you, love. For that he pays."

"He's paid enough!"

"No!" Ripper snarled, and she flinched under the look on his face. "Not _nearly_." He took a short breath, however, trying to back off a little. She wasn't the one he wanted to frighten. It was already bad enough that she would now forever associate his face with her torture. It wouldn’t do to add to it.

"Are you mortal?" Buffy asked Thanos quickly, and he nodded slowly. He knew what she was asking, and he would take it. A quick death was better than a slow one, and it was clear to him that death was inevitable now. Buffy struggled to her feet, and Ripper sighed in annoyance.

"Sit back down, woman, you're injured."

"Make me," She hissed, approaching him. He stared at her in surprise at her anger, and then narrowed his eyes.

"You're _my_  Slayer," He warned carefully. "You listen to what I say!"

"I take it under advisement," She lamented, and then punched him across the jaw.

He fell to the ground, pain bursting across his face and behind his eyes. Damn, she could really pack a punch. He felt oddly proud about her rebellion, about the hit. Before he could recover, she grabbed his hand and wrenched the ring from him. He half-assed scrambled to get it back, pain still blinding him, and she easily pushed him back down, even with her injuries.

"No- !" Not only did he want it back - _crave_  it back - he also knew that it was too much power for her. It might corrupt her. He was already fucked up before the stones, it didn't matter that he found the power addicting. But not his Slayer, not his Buffy -

"Since you aren't human, and you might not be from badness but you're totally full of evil, I have no regret killing you." Buffy announced as she twisted the ring of stones onto her thumb. Ripper stared up at her in half-awe. She was so gorgeous. "But like he said, I'm the hero. So I'll grant you a quick death."

"Thank you," Thanos whispered, his tone terse though cracking through a mouth full of blood. His lip was curled in a half-snarl, even still.

"I'm not doing it for you." She glared down at him, and then with a crack of his neck he was dead, without her even touching him. She turned her attention toward Ripper, who was still sitting on his ass and staring up at her, unsure of where he stood with her now. He didn't want to get up, and risk another punch if she was still pissed at him. "I did it for you." She took a breath in, still wheezing though less so than earlier. Her Slayer healing was finally catching up. "Giles. My Watcher."

Ripper furrowed his brow, and pouted.

"I'm more fun, aren't I?"

"No." She returned with brute honesty. "That book-brained suit is my Watcher, and he's who I need right now." She blinked at him. "Please." She wasn't entirely asking; her fingers twitched by her side and he knew that if he pushed her, she would use the stones to revert him back.

"Fine, fine... a kiss before I go?" He asked hopefully, and she glared darkly at him. He huffed, and fell flat onto his back on the ground. "Worth a shot." He muttered.

After a few brief moments, he sat up suddenly, pushing himself to his feet. He felt nauseous from the sudden loss of adrenalin, and the sudden loss of such magical power in the stones.

"Giles?" Buffy asked, grabbing onto his elbow to steady him.

"I'm sorry, Buffy." He murmured, his heart aching for the way she was looking at him. He ached for that ring too, though, in a way that terrified him. She shook her head, and carefully bent down to retrieve his glasses for him.

"You did what you thought was necessary. We need to figure out how to fix this, Giles. If Thanos had changed the world with these stones, then perhaps we can change it back. Some sort of timeline reversal, or something."

"It's possible," Giles nodded in agreement, slowly slipping the glasses back onto his nose. He knew without a doubt that it was possible, remembering the power of the stones coursing through him as he'd tortured Thanos. He shivered.

Buffy wrapped her arms around him, startling him.

"What if..." She murmured against his chest, and he brought his arms up around her carefully, not wanting to hurt her further, carefully cradling a hand against the back of her head. "What if I change it back and one of us is dead in the real world? Or we hate each other? Or we're enemies? Or we're separated somehow - "

"Buffy,"

"What if I change it back, and we forget this world?"

"That's quite likely." He admitted. And then softly, "Would you not want to forget? Forget what you've seen? What I've done?"

"I don't want to forget _you_ ,"

He understood that entirely. They'd had their problems over the years, but they'd grown through them. She was the closest person in his life, the best friend he's ever had, and he knew that she returned the sentiment. If that were any different in the other reality - the 'correct' reality...

“Buffy, if this comes to be a world that you don’t exist in, then I won’t either. There is no world where I could live without you.” He comforted, his gaze deep and sincere, and Buffy held his hand tightly.

“Same.” She whispered emotionally. He tilted his head down, leaning his forehead against hers. He believed his words whole-heartedly. She was his life, his heart. It would be impossible for him to live without her.

 

———

 

She stood there like that with Giles for an untold amount of time, until they could hear the distant sounds of the police officers scouring this section of the building. They would find them soon, and the dead body on the ground next to them. It wouldn't look good.

“There is no world where I do not love you, Buffy. I am irrevocably certain of that.” Giles murmured. She gripped the front of his shirt, and his nose brushed hers, and then she crushed her mouth against his, a desperate and emotion-filled kiss. He returned the gesture whole-heartedly, his lips softer than she expected, but his mouth hard as he kissed her back.

Buffy whimpered - she’d wanted to know what Giles’ kiss was like for so long, and now here they were, and it was better than she ever could have imagined. But she had a job to do, and they both knew it.

As his kisses softened, she felt his other hand slide down her arm to grip her hand that wore the ring.

“Do what you do best.” He encouraged her softly, his lips only millimeters from hers. “Save the world.”

She gathered her resolve, and gave him one more emotional kiss.

“Find me, Buffy. Find me.”

She closed her eyes, and thought of the world as it should be. Thought of the world as it had originally existed, before Thanos and his stones.

Somehow knowing what to do, she snapped her fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I named Thanos' human cover after Josh Brolin's first movie role in The Goonies.


	3. Chapter 3

Buffy burst into the shop, her eyes darting around until they landed on Giles. He was standing behind the counter, looking at his accounting book or something, and Anya was with a customer.

“What have I said about the door, Buffy.” Giles sighed without looking up as the door slammed closed behind her, the bell above rattling.

Everything within her flared to life at the sight of him. That dark grey waistcoat and trousers, that slightly rumpled blue button-up that dictated the time of day more clearly than a clock, that red tie that was begging her to wrap her fist around it and hold on to it as tightly as possible...

Giles glanced up at her when she didn’t respond with her usual sass, cocking his eyebrow over the rim of his glasses.

The fluttery feeling in her stomach curled into something more molten, and shifted lower.

“ _Giles_.” She breathed out in relief. She hadn’t been sure; her memories were still from Thanos’ world, and she hadn’t known what this ‘real world’ would reveal. Wasn’t sure if Giles was going to be gone or dead or what.

“Oh, if I don’t know that tone.” Anya rolled her eyes, giving Buffy a look as the customer read the back of a bottle. “Take it to the back room. I’ve got a customer here.”

“Is everything alright?” Giles wondered, ignoring Anya’s comment and furrowing his brow as Buffy approached him.

“I wasn’t sure,” Buffy admitted, rounding the counter. He tensed when she stepped well within his personal space. “Do you like me, Giles?”

“Do I - ” He repeated, then stopped and huffed. He glanced over toward the other two in the shop, and removed his glasses, tugging the handkerchief from his pocket to clean them. “Of course I - Buffy, what is this about?”

“This is about you and me!”

“ _Back room_.” Anya warned again, a little more strongly. She darted a fake smile toward the customer that was clearly becoming more interested in the ensuing drama than in her purchase.

Buffy grabbed onto Giles’ arm and dragged him into the back, all the way to their training room, and he could do nothing but stumble after her what with her Slayer strength and all.

“Are we okay?” Buffy asked as soon as they were standing in her training room. “In this world, are we okay?”

“What do you mean, in this world?” Giles asked suspiciously. His eyes roved over her sharply, gazing at her closely through those glasses of his. He was a little older - the lines on his face were deeper - and she was older too, but her memories were all mixed up now.

“Stop answering my questions with more questions!” Buffy complained. He sighed as if she were being tiresome.

“Of course I like you, Buffy. I’m your Watcher.”

“But do you love me?” She asked, and his expression softened slightly.

“You know that I love you.” His eyes were so kind and compassionate. She loved that about him. His eyes were always so... home. “What is wrong, Buffy?”

“But are you _in_  love with me?” She pressed, before she lost her courage. “Like, would you kiss me, if it was the end of the world?” She still remembered the feel of his mouth against hers. The memory of it was more harsh now that he didn’t share it with her. She didn't want to give that up; she wanted to feel it again.

Giles blinked, absolutely frozen still now. He didn’t even seem to be breathing, and she worriedly stepped closer to him.

“Giles?”

“Where is this coming from, Buffy?” He managed to ask, his voice sounding slightly strangled. She noticed how his fingers shook as he removed his glasses again, but she didn’t call attention to it.

“You told me - you told me that there wasn’t any world that existed where you didn’t love me. Did you mean that?” She was terrified to hear otherwise, but, she needed to know for sure. Needed to know if the distance of college had pulled them too far apart.

“I - w-when did I say that?” He wondered nervously. He avoided her eyes now, and she desperately wanted his gaze back on her. She needed that comfort, that familiarity. Giles was safe. Giles was home.

“You’re questioning my questions, again.” Buffy huffed in annoyance, folding her arms across her chest.

“I simply w-want some b-background, Buffy.” He tried to soothe, and she sighed heavily, turning and stalking toward the heavyweight bag hanging on the far side of the room.

“You’re gonna want to check your shelves, Librarian,” She began with. “But it involves an alien named Thanos, and these things called Infinity Stones.”

His mouth parted in surprise, and his eyes immediately took on that sharp glint she recognized as his brain latching on to something and running away with it. He already recognized at least some of what she was saying.

She tried to explain as best she could about that other reality they’d been living, about what they had figured out after interrogating Thanos, before she’d returned the world to this one. She avoided going into too much detail on the interrogation itself.

“How do we know that it’s back to normal, though?” Giles theorized as he paced the floor distractedly. “What if you, unknowingly, figured in something of your own wishes when you used those stones?”

“If I had done that, you and I would be having a more horizontal kind of conversation right now.” Buffy griped not nearly quietly enough, folding her arms across her chest again. His cheeks tinted red and he stared at her.

“What - what else ha-happened in this, this other world, Buffy?” He asked in a tone that sounded like he didn’t completely want to know. “Did I... do something to... you?”

“Do something to me?” She repeated incredulously, and it was like he couldn’t help but quirk his eyebrow at her again.

“Questioning my question.” He pointed out. Touché.

“You kissed me.” She blurted finally, and while Giles’ eyebrows finally seemed to relax for the first time since she’d burst into the shop, he didn’t really look that surprised by her words. “Well, I kissed you. But you kissed me back!”

“Buffy...” He began eventually, carefully, and she interrupted him,

“Don’t you dare say that world wasn’t real! It _was_  real! It was just, different.”

“I...” He stood there with his mouth open for a beat, and then shut it. He looked rather amazed, now, and she stepped close to him again, encouraged that he wasn’t totally shutting down or turning her away or running away.

“You told me to find you - you said that no world existed where you didn’t love me.” She stopped right in front of him, just before she touched him. She stood within his personal space quite often, actually, but this time he looked terrified about it. Were they not as close in this world, as they had been in that one? “Is that true?”

“Buffy... you don’t love _me_.” He protested, and she frowned. “You love that version of me - that’s not me. I think, once your memories stabilize as time passes, you’ll forget all about that other world. Just give it some time, it’s alright,”

“I don’t want to forget that other world!” Buffy protested anxiously, and he looked nervous at her suddenly teary-eyed gaze. “Sure it was scary and we both really almost died but - but Giles, we saved the day! And I kissed the man! Why would I want to forget a Disney ending like that?”

Giles blushed violently at ‘man’, and his eyes darted down toward her lips for half a second.

“That _other_  you _was_  you!” Buffy accused. “He wasn’t any different than the you I’ve always known!”

“So he was old and gross then, too, huh,” Giles muttered under his breath, but Buffy of course heard him. She groaned and stalked away from him, scrubbing her hand down her face.

“I didn’t _mean that_ , Giles, I was- ” She stopped, unsure if she wanted to admit the truth. The other Giles might’ve liked to hear about how jealous she’d been - maybe he would’ve kissed her jealousy away. But this Giles? They were the same person - she was sure of that - but this Giles hasn’t yet seemed to reach the same level of acceptance that Giles had reached. Maybe they hadn't exactly been through the same things. It was still difficult to sort her memories out; which world was which.

“Are you sure it was even really me?” Giles sighed tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. He still held his glasses between his knuckles. “Is it possible it could have been... Ripper?”

“I thought Ripper _is_  you.” Buffy frowned. Now, she felt a little bad about not admitting his Ripper moment to him. Then again, he'd probably now use it as an excuse for the kiss... although she knew better. It hadn't been Ripper that had kissed her.

“Ripper is old me, Buffy. I’m not like that anymore.”

“Unless you’re under a spell. Or drunk. Or stoned. Or super pissed. Or - ”

“Alright, alright.” He huffed, interrupting her list.

“It wasn’t Ripper, it was Rupert Giles, it was my Watcher.” She insisted determinedly. “And my Watcher told me he loved me,” She stepped toward him again.

“I just told you that, too,” He protested lamely.

“And my Watcher kissed me,” She added, and he swallowed, his eyes darting down toward her lips again. It was so quick that she could have missed it if she hadn’t been looking. She wondered how many times she’s missed that gesture in the past. “And I kissed him back. And he was _good_  at it too, really good, like,” She raised her eyebrows in emphasis, and he opened and closed his mouth nervously, no sound coming out. She touched her fingers against the bit of his tie peeking out above his waistcoat, and he flinched.

“That world wasn’t this world,” He whispered brokenly. He sounded terrified again, and Buffy didn’t want him terrified.

“So he was wrong, then.” She grumbled, frustrated that she felt so hurt right now. She took a step away from him, and allowed her hand to fall back by her side. “There _are_  worlds where you don’t love me.”

“Buffy, I _do_  love you,” He insisted, looking worried that she was hurt.

“But you aren’t _in_  love with me.” She turned around and stared at the punching bag again. “I bet there are worlds where you hate me, too. Worlds where one of us is _dead_ ,”

“No, Buffy, you mustn’t think that,” He sounded hurt, now, too, as if he couldn’t bear to think of that. “You must focus on _this_  world. On reality.”

“ _That_  world was reality! For who knows how long! It was real! I _lived it_ _!"_  Buffy insisted, angry now. Why did she have to be the only one with these memories left over? “Here,” She grumbled, shoving the ring against Giles’ chest. His hand brushed against hers as he had to reach up to grab the jewelry before it fell to the ground. She yanked her hand away again quickly, as if his touch burned her. “Don’t put it on, don’t use it. Hide it somewhere no one will ever find it.”

She felt stupid; so worried about possibilities of other worlds that she likely wouldn’t even ever experience herself. But she loved him - she’s loved him for a long time - and just when they finally acknowledge it together, the option is taken away from her. Her heart ached for that, and for any other Buffy out there in the universe perhaps experiencing much worse.

“Buffy...” He tried lamely, only watching as she stalked out of the training room.

The shop door slammed closed with a bang, and he flinched again, and then closed his eyes. A moment later, Anya appeared in the doorway.

“Thank God that customer was gone - what the hell did you do to make Buffy so pissed? I thought for sure I’d find the two of you up against the wall, or something.”

“I... lied.” Giles sighed softly, closing his fist around the ring and tucking it into his pocket. He might not have his own memories regarding this other world Buffy had told him about, but he was no stranger to the emotion that had been left behind. His adoration of his Slayer had been significantly different for a number of years now. And he’d long ago shoved those feelings deep down, as far from his daily consciousness as he could manage.

 

———

 

He knew he was doing it on purpose, but it was a measure of self-defense. He put on the tweediest suit he owned, kept at least one book in his hands at all times, and didn’t budge from the bookshelves in the upper level as long as they were researching in the shop. He only hummed distractedly under his breath whenever one of the Scoobies would say something to him, and they easily bought his act that he was eyebrow-deep into some kind of demonology.

While he _was_  studying up on Infinity Stones, he wasn’t totally focused on the task. He couldn’t stop thinking of Buffy’s lips. He kissed those lips? And she kissed him back? Were they as soft as they looked? Did they taste sweet, or minty? Did she use her Slayer strength to take control -

Giles growled in frustration at himself and slammed his book closed, yanking it up from the table and stalking between the shelves to return it. He hadn’t really been reading this one, anyway. Nothing useful in it, and apparently nothing useful in his brain right now, either.

“Maybe we should come back later...” Xander figured hesitantly, no doubt assuming that Giles was out of earshot.

“Do you think something could be wrong with Buffy?” Willow wondered just as quietly.

“What? Why?”

“Well, she’s just been acting weird the past couple of days. Really tired, likes she been fighting a lot - or maybe just finished something big, you know? And finals are _next_  week, so I know it isn't that,”

“Maybe the bloodsuckers are a little stronger this season.” Xander suggested. "She has been patrolling every night lately. Kind of odd, actually, since generally speaking demon activity has been down compared to past years..." Giles quietly stepped over until he could peek through the shelves and watch the two still sitting at their preferred table.

“She hasn’t been sleeping well, either. I can tell she’s really worried about something. She won’t talk to me about it though, even when it's just the two of us in the dorm. What if she’s sick, Xander?”

“Why would you think she’s sick?”

“Well, because Giles has been weird too. All frustrated all the time, his nose in his books more than ever,”

“He _is_  still a librarian at heart,” Xander reasoned.

“He’s her Watcher, too.” Willow reminded him. “You know how they are.”

Giles' spine straightened, and he frowned.

“Right,” Xander nodded, and Giles desperately wanted to know what exactly they were talking about. “Their connection. The Watcher/Slayer thing.” How did  _they_  know about that? Giles suddenly felt defensive, like his home had been intruded.

But this was Willow and Xander - they were friends. They were Scoobies; they weren’t intruders. As often as they all spent time together, it made sense that they’d been bound to notice how he.... ‘The Watcher/Slayer thing’.

“If Buffy is sick, Giles would know. Giles would be researching a way to heal her.”

“You think that’s what he’s doing?” Xander asked dubiously. “I haven’t really paid close attention because I've been getting the impression he'd smack my head off if I breathed too loud... but, I don’t think he’s been reading health books.”

“He’s been reading old Watcher diaries.” Willow announced, and Giles felt even more affronted than ever, though it was obviously his own fault that he hadn’t been secretive enough. “Not his own - older than that. Other Watchers, about other Slayers.”

“You think it could be some kind of Slayer disease? Not just a cold or something?”

“Maybe. Maybe she’s losing her strength.”

“Like, _literally_? Buffy’s losing her powers? Losing the Slayer thing? I didn’t think that was possible! Well, not since... well, you know,”

“Stop panicking, Xan, it’s only hypothetical.”

“A _serious_  hypothetical.”

Giles turned and leaned his back against the bookshelves, removing his glasses to press his fingers against his eyes. Willow was right, he had been reading old diaries. He’d been reading them solely looking for explanations on the relationship itself, though. Looking for how many times a Watcher and Slayer became romantic. Reading between the lines; understanding interactions more clearly now that he wasn't actively forcing them all to sound platonic. It was far more common than uncommon, even in more recent years, though society has changed so there was a lot of subterfuge involved. Giles couldn’t do that - he didn’t have the strength or the patience for that. And Buffy was far too bold for the two of them to keep a romance secret.

God, he was getting way too ahead of himself. Just because Buffy was fascinated about kissing him didn’t mean that she wanted to pursue a relationship.

“You remember when they got into that big fight?” Xander had dropped his voice further, and Giles had to focus to understand what he was saying. “And didn’t speak for a while? Avoided one another?”

“Yeah, and Buffy became a big - well,”

“Yeah. And he got all mopey and short-tempered. But when they made up, it was like everything was back to normal. No more bitchy Giles, no more bitchy Buffy.”

Giles pursed his lips. He hadn't been _bitchy_ , he'd been... well, alright, he'd been a little bitchy.

“I don’t think they’re fighting now though,”

“Anya told me they had an argument last week; Buffy stormed in, dragged him into the back room, and then after a while stomped out again.” After a hesitation Xander added, “She thought they’d been having sex, but she said Buffy wouldn’t have been so frustrated when she left, if that’d been the case.”

“Xander,” Willow scolded.

"What? Anya said it, not me!"

Damn straight - if he’d been having sex with Buffy she’d been nothing but satisfied. Maybe even unable to walk.

“Focus.” Giles hissed to himself, chagrined with his derailed train of thought.

“Anyway, you know how the physical distance, the lack of communication, seemed to physically affect them? Maybe that’s happening again. Maybe Buffy is sick, and it’s hurting them both.”

“He has looked rather tired lately, himself... more than usual, I mean.” Willow slowly agreed.

Giles closed his eyes and sighed quietly.

Buffy wasn’t sick, she was heartbroken. And Giles could feel it, much as he tried not to.

And it was his own fault.

He had a feeling that something more had happened in the other reality, something beyond a shared kiss. Perhaps they'd been in a relationship. Whatever it was, Buffy had clearly deeply loved him. But he couldn't ask her about it now, not with the way he'd reacted to her in the first place. Besides that, he'd be surprised if she even told him the truth now. She'd probably lie no doubt in effort to spare his feelings.

 

———

 

_> My Watcher kissed me...and he was GOOD at it too, really good...<_

Giles scowled at himself. Unbelievable.

“I’m not _jealous_.” He growled under his breath, slamming his diary closed. “I’m not jealous of _myself_.” He pushed his book away from him and stood up, unbuttoning his waistcoat and tugging loose the knot of his tie.

It had been weeks, now, since Buffy had told him about the Stones, given him the ring, asked him if he’d loved her...

Willow had been right about more than one thing; their Watcher/Slayer connection was fraying apart. Not in the same violent way that it had the first time, but that’s what made it worse now - as hard as both Giles and Buffy did their best to pretend that all was well, all was not well.

He couldn’t blame her at all, and he didn’t - she couldn’t help how she felt. But he couldn’t help how he felt, either. And he felt terrified.

And, apparently, jealous.

The phone rang as he was pacing, and he jumped and stared at it for a moment. He glanced at the clock and frowned. Who could be calling the shop at this hour? Maybe it was Buffy - maybe something went wrong on patrol.

“Yes?” He answered breathlessly, pressing the phone too hard against his ear.

“Mr. Giles?” The male voice at the other end sounded unfamiliar, and Giles tried to relax. It wasn't Buffy; she was probably fine...

“Yes?” He responded.

“This is Tony Stark...”

“... Yes?” Giles pursed his lips, growing more annoyed when the man paused for too long.

“I hear you are who we have to thank for the Thanos situation.”

“How do you know about that?” Giles demanded. “Who are you?”

He glanced up as the door opened, and when he saw that it was Buffy he felt relieved, though his stomach dropped as well. She was here to check in after patrol, which was fine, and he should be only relieved - but he looked a ruffled mess and he knew it. He didn’t want to look rumpled in front of her; he’d been doing his utmost for the exact opposite, in fact. Cool, calm, and collected Giles. Tweedy Giles. Not a Giles that she could picture all rumpled up in _other_  scenarios. Not a Giles that might remind her of that other Giles.

“I’m - I’m Tony Stark? Okay maybe - Iron Man?” The man on the other end of the phone seemed extremely surprised that Giles didn’t recognize him.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, I’m afraid I’m not familiar.” Giles apologized, and Buffy’s questioning gaze immediately zeroed in and she slid into Giles’ space. Giles froze again. She was a little sweaty, a little dirty; her usual post-patrol self when vampires were involved.

Giles was enamored. She was standing so close. She wasn't standing close enough. Frankly, her scent was delightful -

“Stark?” She hissed. “Who Stark?”

“Wow,” Stark’s voice was muffled, pulled away from the receiver, “Pep, I just found somebody who doesn’t know who I am. ... Under a rock, yeah, I know right?”

“I’m afraid you may have the wrong number,” Giles gritted his teeth, annoyed to be on the phone and annoyed by how his heart skipped with Buffy’s continued closeness.

“No, no!” Stark immediately spoke directly into the phone again. “Rupert Giles, right? Your job is a, uh, librarian by day, Watcher by night? Whatever that is - and from what I’ve read, kind of a job I would’ve liked back in my single years - ow! Sorry, Pepper.”

“Not a librarian," Giles rolled his eyes, "Not anymore. How do you know about - are you with the Council? I’ve _told_  you people that I don’t belong to you anymore, regardless of new leadership, and neither does Buffy, and you can’t keep me from being her - ”

“Buffy!” Stark interrupted excitedly. “Buffy Summers, the Slayer! Amazing.”

“How do you know - ”

“Being my what?” Buffy wondered innocently, distracting Giles. He tilted the phone from his mouth for a moment, frowning at her.

“Your- your,” He gestured his free hand vaguely through the air. She was making that little smile on purpose, and Stark was speaking again.

“I’m on my way to town - I want to meet you guys. Personally shake your hand, for saving the world and all that.”

Giles was overwhelmed for more than one reason. Buffy was staring up at his hair, now, her eyes sparkling with...something.

“I... we don’t do public events,” Giles thought to warn.

“Right. I figured that when it took me over a month to figure out who and what you are. Not to worry - I can be discreet.”

Who and what he is? He wasn’t a what! He was an Englishman!

“Ow! Pepper! I can too be discreet! It’s just not often necessary.”

“Mr. Stark, if that is all,” Giles grumbled wryly.

“Of course. I’ll call again when we’re in town. Don’t worry about the ‘we’, it’s just me and the kid. He’s freaking out about meeting the Slayer. I’ve come to accept that I can’t stop him once he has his mind set on something.”

“Ah... okay.” Giles pinched the bridge of his nose, and then hung the phone up after bidding a mostly polite farewell to the man on the other end.

“Was that Tony Stark? Were you just on the phone with Tony Stark?” Buffy demanded, latching onto Giles’ arm. He was momentarily amazed that in her excitement, she’d forgotten that she no longer touched him outside of training. Perhaps her mind was finally righting itself, and her memories were aligning themselves properly.

“Uh, ac-according to him, yes.” Giles confirmed hesitantly. Her eyes widened and her hands tightened around his forearm enough to make him wince. “You know him?” He asked weakly, knowing what was coming.

“Oh my _God!"_  Buffy sure enough squealed, making him wince even more at the sound than from her strong grip. “Tony _Stark!"_  She let go of him suddenly and danced away from him. “That is so cool! Wait,” She shifted back close again, and Giles was breathless. “Why were you talking with Tony Stark? How do you know Tony Stark?”

“I _don't_  know this Mr. Stark, but I’m guessing that you do.” He grumbled. He hadn’t seen Buffy look this excited since she’d barreled into his shop and said his name so -

And now she was literally squealing over this man. She didn’t even know yet that she would soon meet him.

Giles wasn’t jealous. Giles wasn’t jealous at all.

 

———

 

_> Ethereal. My beautiful Slayer. I would do anything to better her life, include lying to her. I sit here Watching her train; the curves and lines of a painting brought to life, and I know I must continue to lie. She is the Slayer, and I am her Watcher. If she knew how truly I worried for her, she may halt her nightly patrols. That would be selfish of me, terribly selfish._

_She is ethereal, and she is mine, but she is also not. <_

“- and _that_  was how we staked three vamps in just two moves,” Buffy announced as she strolled into the shop, side by side with a handsome young man.

Not Stark. ‘The kid’ - though Stark had gone along with them on Buffy’s little ghost story tour of the city. Giles closed the ancient diary and covered it up with one of the other books on the counter nearby, and stood from his stool.

“That is _so cool_ ,” The young man was completely entranced by Buffy, gazing at her as if she were... ethereal. “Could you teach me some moves? I mean, with the Spidey thing I’ve got my quick reflexes and senses but I had no idea - I mean, _real_  vampires!”

“Aliens are a dime a dozen, and the kid is shocked by vampires.” Stark rolled his eyes fondly as he approached the counter, the other two disappearing into the back room.

Giles watched the young pair walk across the room and then through the open door, completely engrossed in their own conversation. Buffy hadn’t even glanced up to him for a silent ‘hello’.

“She’s the Slayer,” Giles raised a warning eyebrow in Stark’s direction, covering up his hurt with stoicism. “I don’t think it’s advisable for them to spar.”

“Buffy told me that you are rather singularly-focused when it comes to what dangers you save the world from,” Stark laughed, leaning an elbow atop an uncluttered section of the counter. “Supernatural, not so much the extraterrestrial. And no television, either? Explains a lot. Well, trust me when I say that I’m sure Peter can handle her.”

Giles didn’t want _Peter_  handling her. He bristled.

“Would you like some tea?” He asked tersely, needing to do something with his hands. Stark nodded.

“Sure, unless you’ve got something stronger,”

“This is a magic shop.” Giles returned dryly. He wasn’t about to share the scotch hidden between the stacks in the off-limits section. That was his, and at this rate he would surely need it before the evening was over. He pushed himself back from the counter and shifted to step around it, muttering under his breath, "I _do_  have a telly, I just have better things to do than rot my brain..." Or find himself watching _Passions_  again. Eugh.

“So. Demons and vampires, huh.” Stark commented, following Giles over to the corner where he kept the electric kettle and other tea supplies.

“And yet alien life-forms don’t shock you.” Giles more or less echoed his earlier statement.

“What can you tell me about your story with Thanos? How did that happen, if you guys are focused on the underworld stuff?” Stark diverted the focus of the conversation. Giles turned to face him in surprise, waiting for the kettle to boil.

“Buffy didn’t tell you?” He had assumed that had been one of the purposes of their walk. Stark shook his head.

“She said you’d have it all written down. That you could tell it better.” He smirked. “Said you were always the better story-teller, anyway. That come with the Watcher territory, or the Librarian?” Stark was teasing him, but Giles was too busy being pleased by Buffy’s assessment.

She always complained when he started getting long-winded. She liked hearing his stories?

“I’m not sure I could tell it as accurately; she’s the only one who remembers that world first-hand. I assume that has to do with her being the one to change everything back. I only know what she's told me.”

“According to her, she _doesn't_  remember it.”

Giles froze, and stared hard at the other man.

“What?” He asked carefully, reaching for his glasses to clean them, thinking furiously about why Buffy would tell this man that.

“She told me that she had you write it all down, because she was starting to forget the details. And apparently today, she barely remembered any of it at all. Not first-hand recall, anyway.” Stark folded his arms across his chest as he observed Giles’ obvious concern. “You didn’t expect her to forget?”

“Distance from the event...” Giles murmured thoughtfully, his mind only half-focused on that particular note. “The timeline - or this fabric of reality - must be smoothing itself out, perhaps. Her mind is solidifying in _this_  world.” His theory had been correct.

She was forgetting that other world; soon would only know what happened by the writings in Giles’ journal. Which meant that she was forgetting... she wouldn’t remember her love for him. She wouldn’t remember their kiss.

The kettle beeped that it had reached the proper temperature, and Giles almost knocked it over as he turned around to prepare the tea with shaking hands. It was a kiss that he didn’t recall, either, but there had been something comforting about knowing that at least one of them remembered it. First he had been terrified that Buffy knew 'how good' he kissed, but now he was terrified that she didn’t.

Even though he had chosen not to act on her experiences from the other world, he still had a deep sense that he’d lost his chance at... at something.

“And while we’re alone... we need to discuss what to do with the ring.” Stark announced with a haunting sort of seriousness, and Giles nodded in agreement. He was comforted to have another topic to fully focus his thoughts on, and settled his racing heart.

_> She is mine, but she is also not. I was Chosen for her, but she was Chosen for the World. Such is the curse of the Watcher.<_


	4. Chapter 4

"One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster... The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free," Giles sang, nodding his head a little as he strummed his guitar. It was late, though not too late, and he’d shrugged off his jacket and suspenders, letting the latter hang down by his sides loosely. His tie had disappeared long ago; right after he’d learned that he wouldn’t be patrolling with Buffy tonight. He wasn’t as comfortable as he could be, but it was enough.

"You'll find a god in every golden cloister... And if you're lucky then the god's a she... I can feel an angel sliding up to me... Ah!" He yelped and jumped up from his chair when he realized he was no longer alone, half-tucking his guitar behind him as if he could hide it.

"You... what is happening?" Buffy stared at him as if he weren't human.

"What? Nothing." He quickly but carefully leaned the instrument in the corner against the wall and nervously brushed his hands through his hair. "Tea?" He asked weakly.

She nodded slowly, eyeing him sideways as she watched him disappear into his kitchen. She looked back toward his guitar, slowly stepping after him.

"You haven't had any contact with a zoot-suit demon recently, have you?" Buffy asked him carefully, leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, watching him work.

"No demons here," He replied with false cheer. He hadn't expected her to return from her patrol so soon. Not having had taken _Peter_  along with her. "How was your patrol? Anything particularly nasty that I should be warned about?"

"No, but I would've liked some warning about this," She muttered under her breath. His ears felt warm.

"Am I not allowed my hobbies, now?" He returned, fussy and defensive in his embarrassment. It was bad enough that the others had discovered his private habit - his only respite had been that Buffy herself had somehow always miraculously missed those events. And _now_? After everything? It felt too personal.

"No!" She protested, and then corrected, "I mean yes!" She hesitated, and then admitted, "After all these years, you still manage to surprise me."

Her comment was startlingly intimate, and he wondered if she realized that. She sounded intrigued, and he cursed himself for considering to entertain her; to play a song for her. She’d like it, he bet; he had a whole list of possibilities that he could sing for her.

No. Absolutely not. _Too intimate_.

He managed to turn her focus toward her patrol once more, asking for details that weren't honestly all that necessary, jotting dutifully into his Watcher's journal as she finished her tea. She spoke of Peter's talents with admiration, surprise, even a little pride. It made Giles uncomfortable, but he continued to write down her words as selflessly as possible. Perhaps, later, he could record his own observations and feelings on the idea of her patrolling with a human possessing spider-like powers.

"Thanks, Watcher-mine." Buffy beamed at him, shrugging her jean jacket back over her shoulders. "These chats always calm me down after a hunt."

"Are you calling me boring?" He raised his eyebrow teasingly, feeling far too warm and comfortable within her presence. _Watcher-mine_. That was nice to hear. It’d been a while.

"Not at all," She replied, her gaze darting toward the corner where his guitar had sat ignored since her arrival. Her smile widened, and she looked back to him. "See you tomorrow!" She announced brightly, and he stood in his doorway and watched her stroll down the sidewalk until she turned the corner and disappeared from view.

Giles cleaned up the remains of their tea and poured himself a couple fingers of scotch before he settled in his chair again, once more picking up his guitar. He stared at her empty seat on the couch for a minute or two.

"One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble, not much between despair and ecstasy... One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble, can't be too careful with your company... I can feel the devil walking next to me..."

 

———

 

"Ugh," Buffy complained as she flopped onto Giles' couch, lifting her feet up to prop her heels atop the coffee table. "You'd think closing up the Hellmouth would be a _good_  thing,"

Giles made a face at her as he lifted her crossed ankles, retrieving the book from beneath them, before setting her heels back onto the wood. He brushed imaginary dust off of the book and returned it to the shelf.

"It _is_  a good thing." He commented, and she huffed again.

"I've got all this _energy_  all the time, and no outlet!" She hopped up a moment later, and began to pace. "I spent all day in class, actually attended a study hall sesh - yeah, yeah, shut your mouth - _and_  patrolled for _three_  extra hours than normal."

He was already heading for his tea cabinet before really thinking of it, pulling out some chamomile and setting the kettle in the sink to fill with water.

"I'm sorry that Peter had to return home," He commented, doing his best to sound consoling, thinking of how she'd spend her excess energy in the past. It was no secret that he was glad Riley had moved on, though he could begrudgingly admit that he missed Spike. He didn't miss their unhealthy relationship, though. He didn't miss Spike rubbing it in his face, all the time, either. He did miss watching telly with the vampire, though ( _not_  bloody soaps). He missed having someone else he could trust to have Buffy's back, no exceptions, ever.

"Peter? What's he got to do with it?" She furrowed her brow. Giles swallowed and hesitated, glancing at her briefly as he set the full kettle onto his stovetop. Buffy measured his gaze, and then gaped at him. "Gross, Giles!"

"What?" He protested. "He's handsome and fit and a hero on his side of the country,"

"He's _seventeen_!" Buffy exclaimed, which caused Giles to pause again, mid-way reaching for two mugs.

"Oh." Well, he felt like a real git, now. And all this time he'd assumed they'd been...

"You didn't know that?" Buffy wondered incredulously. "You've worked with high schoolers for years!"

"Well, he's rather mature for his age!" Giles protested, and Buffy snorted.

"He's also a teenaged boy, Giles, honestly - you must not've been paying close attention,"

"I saw enough!" He huffed defensively, setting the mugs down too hard against his counter. "All moon-eyed and fumbling about around you."

"You were _jealous_?" She sounded even more incredulous than before, and he bristled.

"No!" He half-assed defended himself. Buffy laughed, and his defensive posture slumped. She didn't sound angry with him, she simply sounded... amused.

"If you wanted to slay with me, you only needed to ask," She informed him gently, folding her arms and leaning her shoulder against the doorway of his kitchen. "I know it's been a while. I kinda miss it too."

"I..." He trailed off, realizing she'd hit the nail on the head before he'd even consciously recognized it. He wasn't just jealous of a perceived relationship - he was jealous as her Watcher. "You do?"

"I feel like we've lost a lot, Giles." Buffy admitted even more softly, her eyes dimming with memory. He imagined that she was also still feeling a bit of her emotions surrounding fading memories of the other world, but the fact that she didn't appear as hurt by them was quite telling. "We have a lot to catch up on. Especially," Her gaze sharpened wryly, "since you seem to think I'm some kind of cradle-robber."

He spluttered defensively, unable to get a clear word out, and she smirked at him. He pursed his lips and stopped trying, turning back toward his stove. Of course, a watched pot never boils... He took his mug to the sink and poured a little cold water in it, attempting to clear his suddenly-dry throat.

"Anyway, something more like _grave_ -robber would be more accurate." She commented thoughtfully, and his sprayed his mouthful of water out into the sink. "It goes along with the slayage theme quite nicely, too! Double-meaning and all that." She decided brightly, ignoring his spit-take. "Let me know when the tea's ready!"

He heard her steps bounce away, and he set his mug down on the counter as he wiped his fingers against his mouth. She was just alluding to her past boyfriends, her ancient vampire boyfriends, that was all. It had nothing to do with him or her fascination with other-world him or the fact that universes now existed where they had kissed.

He lifted his head, staring unseeingly out toward his dining table. Logically, those universes have _always_  existed; he was simply only now aware of them.

And if there were universes where they kissed, then surely there were certain universes where they...

"Bloody hell..." He grumbled to himself, feeling his heart trip all over itself.

 

———

 

Buffy laughed, leaning against Giles companionably as they walked, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. His heart swelled with warmth and he couldn’t help but break out into a wide smile. Her easy affection with him was often the highlight of his day, and he felt as if their bond was stronger than it had ever been. When he felt like this with her, the world’s nastiest demon couldn’t break them apart. He felt almost dangerously invincible.

Tentatively, he no longer brought up Thanos' other world. As weeks turned into months since that event, Buffy seemed to have forgotten why she was keeping her distance from Giles, and they once more were the Watcher and Slayer duo that they used to be. He didn't want to mess that up by making her uncomfortable. In the quiet moments, when he was alone, he lamented that their shared kiss was truly lost to the void now. It was an unfortunate paradox that he had to live with, which went along with the paradox of his own feelings on the matter.

At least she was near again, now.

Occasionally going out on patrols with her again was more than he ever could have asked for, and he treasured these nights. She seemed to be her vibrant self again, perhaps even close to her pre-resurrection days, and the brief concern that the Scoobies had for her health was no longer an issue. They'd attributed it to a generic flu, and figured that Giles had caught it as well; an acceptable explanation to the mutual symptoms between Watcher and Slayer.

To Giles' relief, none of them pressed him with questions about his 'thing' with Buffy, but he did see them looking, from time to time. Watching his interactions with his Slayer when they thought he wouldn't notice. He wasn't sure what the new interest was about; they'd known one another for years, and never questioned his dealings with Buffy back when - honestly - some things probably should have been questioned.

"- broke my heel, so I ripped it the rest of the way off and stabbed him in the chest with it. Poof! And that's how I discovered my kitten heels were made of wood."

Giles snickered at her story; only Buffy would be able to take down a centuries-old vampire with a shoe. He nudged open his front door, gesturing for her to enter first, and quieted his chuckles when he realized that his living room was occupied.

"Hey, G-man," Xander greeted him in an odd tone of voice. "We came over for movie night; didn't realize you'd be out with Buffster."

Giles pursed his lips at the nicknames, but kept quiet about it as he turned to close the door, using the moment to check himself. No use letting the others see how foolishly love-sick he was acting. Buffy didn't seem to be aware, but surely the others would recognize the look in his eyes.

"You make it sound like it was a date," Buffy chuckled, launching herself over the back of his couch and plopping between her two friends on the cushions. "It was just patrol."

Giles lamented his furniture being used as sporting equipment, and tried not to react to her words. It had, honestly, felt a bit like a date. Just the two of them, hanging out and talking about all sorts of random topics - albeit occasionally being interrupted by an attacking vampire. They'd even had ice-cream, on their way to the cemetery.

"So what's the movie for tonight?" She wondered.

"I got to choose this time." Willow announced, a sly look on her face as she glanced toward Giles so briefly that he was the only one who actually caught the gesture. "Footloose." He furrowed his brow at her expression. Did she think that he would disapprove?

"The almighty Kevin Bacon!" Xander crowed. "And there was much dancing and singing!" He performed an odd little dance as he picked up the movie and moved to put it into the DVD player. "And might I add, the upgraded boob-tube was a nice improvement to your digs, Giles."

"I..." He began to protest Xander's use of language, but then shook his head and sighed, letting that go as well.

In all honesty, he very much enjoyed when they wanted to spend time with him outside of hunting and fighting demons. Even if their movie choice was specifically to tease him. 'Singing and dancing'. Hmph. Caught him at that coffee shop _one time_  and just wouldn’t let it go...

"Chamomile tea, Buffy?" Giles offered, a common gesture on his part after patrols, and she nodded emphatically, grinning her thanks to him.

"...What, nothing for us?" Xander pretended to be insulted, and Giles paused halfway between his living room and kitchen.

"Would you like some tea, Xander?" Giles asked him dryly, knowing what his answer would be. The young man made a face and shook his head, throwing himself onto the couch next to Buffy again.

"Nah, I've got a Coke."

"Mhm." Giles mused knowingly, continuing into his kitchen.

"So this is usual, huh?" Willow asked Buffy quietly, though if Giles listened carefully he could still hear them. "Patrol with Giles, back home for tea?"

"Well, it's not really _my_  home," Buffy replied awkwardly, but then in her normal off-handed happiness, "But yeah, pretty much."

"So you two have totally made up then, I take it?" Willow pressed.

"Well... yeah, I guess we have." Buffy sounded like she hadn't really thought about it too closely, but that she was pleased with the assessment. Giles couldn't help but feel his heart swell a bit. "Watcher and Slayer, kicking ass and taking names!"

He grinned at his teapot as he settled it onto the stove burner.

"It is nice that you guys aren't fighting anymore," Xander piped up, and Giles heard a muted smacking sound. "Ow! What? I'm just being honest!"

"I agree." Buffy responded softly. "It's nice."

Giles didn't say anything once the tea was ready and he carried the tray into the living room, though he shared a gentle smile with his Slayer as he passed her a cup of tea. Curious and unable to help himself, he allowed his fingers to trail across hers once she took the cup, his touch lingering. She blushed, ducking her head as she tucked her feet up onto the cushion and propped the cup atop her knees, using her other hand to curl a loose piece of hair behind her ear.

Deep down, he felt Ripper smile knowingly.

Giles prepared his own cup and settled into his reading chair, facing the television but not really focusing on the movie. While it had taken him some time, he was self-aware enough to know that his love for Buffy - _his_  love, in _this_  world - was not as innocent as he'd claimed it to be. It had changed and grown over the years, as they themselves had changed and grown.

And while, like many Watchers before him, he would do anything within his power to keep their bond and friendship strong - including lying about how deep those feelings truly went - he still wondered.

"I bet you were a real Willard in high school, huh Giles?" Willow teased about halfway through the movie, to which Xander snorted and smirked in agreement.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Giles pursed his lips, and Willow shrugged and didn't quite look at him as she conceded innocently,

"Well, he does learn how to dance, eventually."

"I see right through your thinly veiled attempts at tricking me to prove to you that I can, in fact, dance - but I won't give in."

"Besides," Buffy grinned and glanced at him sideways, "I think he was more like Ren than you guys suspect." He knew she was thinking of Ripper, and he pointedly did not meet her gaze, and hid his face behind his cup of tea as he took a long drink.

"Hmm," Willow was seriously considering this, giving Giles a once-over that had him shifting in his seat uncomfortably. The others knew of Ripper, from stories and perhaps a brief glimpse or two - but they didn't know what Buffy knew. And he had no inclination for any of them to ever figure Ripper out.

"Hell," Buffy snorted, "Ren is still too goody-two-shoes. Think more along the lines of Johnny Castle, and maybe you're close." Giles gaped at her in indignation, not because of her reference (of which he had no idea), but because of her expression. She smiled widely and sent him a wink, and that told him enough about this Johnny character.

"Johnny Castle?" Xander frowned. "Wait - _Dirty Dancing_?" His tone went high-pitched a bit as he raised his eyebrows. "No, no no no - I don't wanna think about Giles dirty dancing! Gross! C'mon, Buffy!" He whined, grabbing a handful of popcorn and throwing it at Buffy.

"There's a lot of hip in that kind of dancing," Willow mused in clear disagreement with Buffy's assessment, though she was still eyeballing Giles curiously. "You're pretty majestic with a long sword, but do you even know that you have hips, Giles?"

"Of course I - How I move my hips is no concern of yours!" Giles protested, desperately wanting the conversation diverted.

"Oh, the town hall scene!" Buffy was ironically the one to save him, refocusing on the movie and pointing toward the television screen. "I want to do this, someday. Hey Giles, when's Sunnydale's next town hall?"

"Considering we blew up the last mayor, I highly doubt we'll be allowed to step foot anywhere near the current one." Giles reminded her dryly, and she snorted and rolled her eyes.

"He was a people-eating demon and everybody knew it." She grumbled, but conceded that he was probably right. If there was anything the people in this town were resilient for, it was their perpetual ignorance in the face of pure evil.

Much to Giles' relief, the gang returned their focus fully toward the movie once more, saving him from their Ripper-fueled questions and Buffy's flirting eyes.

Although he quite liked her flirting eyes.

 

———

 

The anniversary of her mother's funeral, Buffy talked to Dawn on the phone for a long time. It was harder for her, that her little sister was at UCLA living her life and Buffy was still here in Sunnydale, but she didn't complain much. Only on the latest of nights, after a hard patrol, and perhaps a glass or two of scotch.

Giles gave Buffy all the space she wanted this anniversary, and tried not to hover as he desperately wanted to help her through the day in any way that he could. If he could take her pain from her, he'd do it in a heartbeat. (If he wasn't already intimately aware with the horrible repercussions of resurrection, he'd consider bringing her mother back. But those were thoughts he didn't even dare to write in his journals.)

A few hours after lunch, he walked with Buffy to the cemetery, neither of them wanting to come by this particular one tonight during patrol. He considered even suggesting she take the night off, and he did so as they meandered down the sidewalks after her visit at her mother’s grave.

She accepted the offer without much push back, which worried him a bit. Then, she requested to come back to his apartment with him, and he couldn't deny her.

"Faith," He spoke quietly into the phone, turning his back to the kitchen where Buffy was carefully preparing tea. "I apologize for the late notice, but can you manage a patrol tonight?"

"Wes and I are getting ready to visit Cleveland in the morning," Faith reminded him, her tone sharp with annoyance. Then, she seemed to recognize the date, and made a short noise in the back of her throat, followed by a sigh. "Shit. Yeah, I'll go out tonight. Is, uh... is she okay?"

While Faith's discomfort was glaringly obvious, Giles appreciated the fact that she was trying. She and Buffy's relationship had always been tenuous at best, but she had held some level of respect for Buffy's mother.

"She'll be okay." Giles confirmed, watching Buffy as she pulled the whistling kettle from the burner.

"Of course she will. She's with you." Giles didn't know what to make of Faith's tone, or how in the world she could know that, and he furrowed his brow. "I'll tell Wes to keep you in the loop about Cleveland, okay? I think he's already convinced we'll be moving there."

"It is a little pointless to have two Slayers residing over a dormant Hellmouth," Giles reasoned gently. "And of course you'll always have our assistance should you need it,"

"Yeah, yeah, we're all one big happy Scooby-Doo family," Faith muttered, going for sarcasm, but Giles knew that it pleased her. "Catch you later, Giles."

"Be safe." He murmured, and then heard the dial tone. He set the phone back into the cradle, and turned to find Buffy holding a full mug in each hand. He accepted his gratefully and blew across the top before taking a careful sip.

"I should be out there." Buffy admitted sadly, looking toward the living room window, and Giles shook his head before guiding her toward the couch.

"Faith isn't leaving until tomorrow. She can handle tonight."

"Doesn't keep The Slayer from wanting to slay." Buffy muttered.

"You miss your mother," Giles replied softly, settling on the couch next to her and doing his best not to feel so happy when she immediately leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "But that does not make you weak."

"How do you..." Buffy sighed and chuckled shortly, tucking her feet up onto the couch and drawing her knees close to her chest. "Sometimes I wonder that you're a mind reader, Giles."

"I just know you." He mused, taking another sip of his tea.

They sat quietly together, drinking slowly until their mugs were emptied, and then sat for a couple of hours more. Giles wasn't a mind reader, so he didn't exactly know what Buffy was thinking about, but _he_  was being entirely selfish. He would stay here on this couch all night long, if it meant that Buffy would stay cuddled up against him like this.

So when she eventually admitted that she didn't want to sleep alone, he had no strength to deny her of that, either. She was missing her mother, after all. She merely wanted human comfort. He told himself that if Willow didn't have the company of Tara, or if Xander hadn’t no doubt been busy with Anya, Buffy would have asked any one of them for that comfort.

“Is it inappropriate to ask you to hold me?” Buffy’s soft voice carried through the dark of his bedroom. She was curled up facing away from him, so he couldn’t see her expression, but he could guess from her tone. She was hurting.

“Rather.” He answered her honestly. Ripper poked at him, he shoved back. Now was not the time, today was not the day.

“Hmm.” She sighed in disappointment, but she didn’t press the issue.

After a moment, Giles reached for her anyway, drawing her snug against his chest and curling his legs behind hers. She tensed in surprise, at first, but then her arm draped over his across her waist, her fingers tangled between his, and she settled against him. She felt so small and delicate against his wide shoulders and long legs, but he knew that was a part of the Slayer deception. She was far stronger than he, both physically and emotionally. Even in her mourning.

“Always a rebel,” Buffy teased lightly, fondly, and he smiled softly, before tucking his nose close to the soft strands of her hair and closing his eyes.

For friendship and comfort, he would give whatever his Slayer was willing to allow him. And in the morning, when they both would inevitably focus on the dreary issues of the day and never again discuss this tender moment between them, he would save it up carefully in the back of his mind. Her scent, her body, her warmth. The darkened intimacy of a bedroom at night. He knew for sure, in his weaker moments, he will revisit this night in his memory, and wonder at what could have been.

_> My Watcher kissed me, and I kissed him back...<_


	5. Chapter 5

“Giles?” Buffy froze in the doorway, staring in unbridled surprise at her Watcher, who’d mistakenly assumed that he’d have the training room all to himself this early in the morning.

“B-Buffy!” He immediately unfolded himself carefully from his yoga position, his face deeply red with embarrassment.

She tilted her head to the side as she observed his form.

"Just how flexible are you?" She wondered. That hadn't been any pose he'd taught her, before. He'd been completely bent backwards into something of a u-shape; his toes pointed and knees flat on the ground, his torso bent backwards until his elbows and forearms lay flat on the ground behind his feet, his fingers curled around his ankles, his neck stretched so that his forehead pressed against the ground between his feet.

“It helps t-to relieve my - my t... t-t-tension,” He stammered nervously, twisting around to sit cross-legged on the mat, folding his hands together carefully and casually atop his lap.

"Are those _yoga pants_?" They fit him pretty snugly, too.

"Tell no one."

_> "Hey, is that The Slayer?"<_

"Is that a _laptop_?!" Buffy exclaimed in more shock than ever, momentarily distracted from Giles' state of dress.

"It's a hand-me-down of Willow's," Giles defended himself, and Buffy dropped down onto her hands and stomach next to him as she peered into the screen. Tony's face greeted her, and he brightened when he saw her.

_> "Hello, Buffy,"<_

"You know how to video chat?!" Buffy stared at Giles. Who _was_  this man?

 _> "I had to call and talk him through it."<_ Tony explained before Giles could stutter too much. > _"Wanted to trade work-out tips between Watcher and Iron Man. Also, Buffy, I'm sending him a new computer. Make sure he doesn't throw it out. That thing he's using now is ancient!" <_

"He'd be using morse code right now, if he could manage it." Buffy snarked, rolling her eyes, and Giles made an affronted noise. "Sorry," She raised an eyebrow at him, "carrier pigeon?"

He let out a growl and tackled her, and while she hadn't quite been ready for that, she rolled with it and wrestled him until she found herself on top.

 _> "I'll uh, just leave you two alone now."<_ Tony laughed, and then the laptop sounded that the video call had ended, and Giles frowned up at her again.

"You interrupted."

"I'm sorry, forgive me for intruding on this budding bromance you have going on,"

"Bromance?" He repeated incredulously.

"Oh, don't act like you don't know what that means," She rolled her eyes again, and then she somehow found herself flipped onto her back, Giles' legs tangled with hers and keeping her from kicking out of the hold.

"I'll have you know that forming connections with powerful and affluent people is an important aspect of a Watcher's duty," He was mildly short of breath, which she found curious; they hadn't been wrestling around for that long. "Especially considering how the Council feels about us."

"And how _we_  feel about the Council." Buffy pointed out with a quirked eyebrow, and he smirked a little.

"We need to have someone like that we can turn to if necessary."

"It's okay, Giles, I approve of your bromance." Buffy grinned cheekily, and he pursed his lips.

They were still laying on the floor, legs tangled together, his palms curled around her wrists against the mat beneath her. In all their years of sparring, he'd always been very careful to keep things appropriate. Buffy had never once thought twice about rolling around on the floor with her Watcher. He was teaching her, making her stronger, faster, better.

But today he hadn't been planning to spar with her. His t-shirt was soft, more form-fitting than usual. The yoga pants. The fact that - if he even was wearing anything beneath them - they were loose and... unrestrictive.

Oh, oh. _Oh_.

"I need to get dressed. Anya has the day off and I'm managing the shop on my own today." Giles murmured as he disentangled himself and got to his feet, bending to fold the laptop closed and tuck it under his arm. He left the room without looking at her again, but she didn't freak out about that.

She was still laying on her back, staring up at the ceiling in amazement. The fact that he hadn't stuttered upon his exit told her that he didn't know that she knew, but, _hell_  - she knew. Giles had always been a man, of course, but... Giles was a _man_. With a package. The sort of package that felt real nice pressed against her. The sort of package that liked to make itself known when rolling around with the Slayer.

Buffy brushed her hands over her face and laughed softly. This was _Giles_  that she was feeling this primal sort of pleasure for. Librarian-turned-Magic-shop-owner Giles. Rebel, demon-fighter Giles. Bookworm Giles. Giles that apparently ran, and bent, and... frolicked?

"Oh, God," Buffy moaned and rolled over onto her stomach, pressing her red face into the mats for a moment. Giles wasn't old and gross at all; she'd been lying then and it would most definitely be a lie now. While it was briefly an odd feeling to be turned on by Giles, she quickly accepted it and marveled in it, instead. Why in the world hadn’t she noticed it sooner? His handsomeness hadn't been in question for a long time now, but - her Watcher was _sexy_.

 

———

 

Buffy watched from across the room as Giles rang up a customer, an awkward smile on his face as he accepted a slip of paper from her before she accepted her purchases and left the shop. Buffy smirked; anyone who knew him would understand how that expression was more of a grimace than a smile. He looked down at the paper, sighed heavily, and then tossed it into the trash can behind the counter. He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, took a calming breath, and then stepped toward the end of the counter to continue working on his current project.

It was something wooden, some kind of talisman that would hold small, protective magical qualities. He was still training Willow with her powers, carefully watching over her as she continued to grow more confident with that part of herself, again. It seemed healthy for the both of them, and Buffy loved watching them work together. She supposed, if she were younger, she'd be jealous of them. It was different now, though; she could see how much Willow looked up to Giles, saw him as a father-figure, and how he cared deeply for her in return. Buffy didn't feel that way about him so much anymore, so she didn't see any reason to be jealous. She and Giles had a different sort of relationship.

Now, she found herself jealous of odd things. The spine of a beloved book that would receive his reverent touch. The rag dipped in wood stain, bundled in his hands, brushing smoothly and assuredly against his creations. The cup of tea, delicate in his fingers, firm against his mouth. The glasses - those damned glasses - garnering more of his touch and attention than any other thing living or otherwise in this world.

The glasses, she realized with curiosity, that he hadn't been wearing much this week. He didn't seem to be fussing about his vision, so she wondered if he'd started wearing contacts. That was a weird choice for him, but she couldn't complain too much - it allowed a much more unrestrictive view of his eyes.

He'd _always_  had gorgeous eyes - that had been the very first thing she'd noticed about him. He was tall, and English, and _those eyes_...

_> Can I help you?<_

Okay, maybe it was his voice, and _then_  his eyes.

 _> Miss Summers.<_ Like he knew her. > _I'm Mr. Giles. <_ Like she was supposed to know him.

Alright, alright, so maybe she'd thought he was a little effeminate - and real creepy with the whole _Vampyr_ thing which she's already been on him about - but she really did notice his eyes that day.

"Hey, Bufferino," Xander greeted, flopping down into a seat across from her, startling her from her memories. "Ugh, I thought class would _never end_ , today. I don't know what's worse; sitting through two-and-a-half hours of Freud, or listening to a Bong Hard demon talk all day."

"Bohg'dar." Giles corrected from across the room, still focused on his work.

"How he _always_  knows what we mean, I will never figure out." Xander whispered in amazement, making Buffy grin.

"Watcher superpowers, I suppose." She joked, and Xander nodded in agreement.

"Superpowers I hope to learn someday. Only reason I'm putting up with three hours of psych every other day!"

"Trust me, it's better than some of the tripe the Council would've put you through..." Giles grumbled with a Ripper-tinged distaste.

"So, Freud though? I figured you'd _love_  that." Buffy teased.

"What are you trying to say?" Xander protested, pretending to be affronted.

"Oh yes," Giles murmured sarcastically, "A psychoanalyst obsessed with human sexuality; that's right up your alley."

"You know," Xander pointed out loudly, defensively, " _Up your alley_ is exactly the type of phrase that Sigmund Freud would say is - "

"So, Giles," Buffy interrupted quickly, not wanting to get caught up in a Freudian discussion with _him_  in the room, of all people, "What exactly is that you're working on?" She knew what it was, but Xander didn’t know that.

"Another simple protection charm," He answered her easily, just as fine with the change in subject as well. He kept his eyes down, and she wished he would look up at least once. He hadn't been meeting her gaze very often today, and whenever he happened to, it would only be brief.

"Is it already magicked?" Xander wondered.

"No. Why?"

"Oh. Just wondering; I know Buffy can sense stuff like that, and with the weird look I figured..." He trailed off when Giles jerked his head up to meet Buffy's gaze directly.

"Do you sense something here?" He questioned seriously. "I don't, but perhaps your Slayer abilities - I don't want to cross-contaminate, especially something I intend on selling to these otherwise foolish townspeople,"

"N-no," Buffy stammered, embarrassed that she'd been caught staring, while relieved that Xander hadn't actually caught on to what (who) she'd been staring at. "Nothing wiggy there, Giles." She glanced toward Xander briefly, but couldn't resist looking back at her Watcher while she still held his attention. "There was no weird look."

"There was definitely a weird look," Xander nodded, speaking offhandedly now as his focus diverted toward the homework he had to do.

Giles blinked, and Buffy felt breathless. For the first time in a long while, that intense expression was pointed toward her, and not toward the fascinating research of the day. His gaze made her skin prickle and her hair stand on end. She wasn't sure how long they stared at one another, but then suddenly he was looking back down toward the talisman on the counter, smoothing a different rag over it now, clearing off any excess stain.

Buffy darted her eyes down toward the table in front of her, clenching her hands around her knees as she willed her body to calm down. For just a brief second, she'd seriously considered launching herself across the room at the man - and she fully believed he'd been ready for it.

"Freud would have a field day with you two." Xander muttered under his breath, sounding both exasperated and amused.

Buffy jerked her head up to gape at him, but he was pointedly focused toward the text book in front of him.

 

———

 

“Have you ever... looked at Giles, before?” Buffy asked rhetorically, her attention somewhere out the window. Willow and Xander glanced at one another warily.

“Ugh, I do my very best not to,” Anya groaned, focused more on her sandwich. “I see the dork almost every friggin' day.” Her complaining was good-natured; employer and employee had a carefully comfortable relationship these days.

Buffy wasn’t really paying attention to her friends. She was recalling the previous night, when they’d all been piled around the living room in Giles' apartment, elbow deep in demon research, books and notes scattered everywhere. Giles had been drinking a little scotch throughout the study sesh, and as the night wore on, the alcohol began to catch up to him. Not a lot; not nearly to the levels they’d all witnessed before. But it lowered his guard significantly, and as Buffy told stories to the others about one of her recent patrols, he watched her.

That’s what Watchers did, of course. They Watch. But he took it to a whole different level last night. He focused on Buffy as if the others weren’t even there. He stopped reading his books entirely, and opted to simply continue gazing at her as he slowly finished off his drink. This was not the apprising gaze of her trainer, or the proud gaze of her teacher. This was the gaze of a man who was intently focused on a singular idea, and it wasn’t the kind of idea one could appropriately share with the class.

Even when she averted her eyes and focused on the others, the weight of his gaze made her squirm in her seat. The heat in his eyes haunted her later on, before she went to bed. The way his lips touched the edge of the whiskey glass. How he distractedly twiddled the fingers of his free hand together, lost in thought. “Wool-gathering”, he would call it.

Panty-gathering, _she_  would call it.

“Ugh.” Buffy rolled her eyes and ripped a french fry in half with her teeth, trying to focus on her lunch date with her friends. Xander still worked his construction job when he wasn't taking classes, and his lunch break was only so long.

Her thoughts were haunted with the fading memory of a kiss. She was almost certain it had been real, but, Giles? Kiss her? It had to be from a dream she'd had last night. An oddly sensuous dream. When in the world would they have _actually_  kissed? Especially with such... desperation, and desire, as she seemed to 'recall'?

Definitely just a dream. An overactive imagination of a sexually repressed Slayer.

"Why?" Anya responded to Buffy’s question cheekily, knowingly. "Have _you_  been looking at Giles?"

"Anya," Xander scolded, as if he hadn't caught Buffy looking just last week. "must you make everything sound so dirty?"

Buffy ducked her head and focused on her plate as the other girls quickly got distracted, teasing Xander for turning into a mini-Giles, all starting to talk in various levels of British uppity-ness. He might not be getting Watcher training straight from the source, but the Britishness of it all was only tempered so much. Buffy knew that Giles still expected a lot from Xander, and Xander wanted to make him proud anyway.

Not that Xander would ever tell her this in so many words, but she could tell in the way that he went after the courses at UC Sunnydale that Giles suggested. How hard he worked to continue with the construction gig to help Anya pay for their apartment. He was taking it all very seriously, and while Giles was fairly strict with him, Buffy could tell that he was already proud of him.

_> Still much too flippant in the face of danger. It's as if he honestly cannot resist sassing them after they've threatened him! It's incredibly... tacky!<_

Giles vented his frustrations sometimes while they sparred. That's how Buffy knew that Giles was proud.

_> You are so happy to be training up another Watcher, admit it. You're getting to be more Watcher-y now than you ever have before!<_

_> Well... Well, I'll do a damn better job of it than the Council, that's for certain! He's got fine instincts - and they wouldn't have given him the time of day!<_

_> Like they didn't Ripper?<_

_> Like they didn't **me**. Xander has a heart, an understanding, for Slayers that most others do not. Growing up with you has only encouraged that. The Council would've beaten it out of him with an encyclopedia. Insisted upon lines and boundaries that only would've hindered his progress as a Watcher.<_

_> You mean those same lines and boundaries that **you** ignored?<_

_> I, I - that is a different circumstance altogether.<_

His venting frustration had gave way to uncomfortable embarrassment, and he'd clammed up almost as suddenly as he'd poured out his honest thoughts about Watcher training and Xander. He'd fumbled around with the protective padding on his chest, giving himself an excuse to hide his face from her.

_> You're the perfect teacher for him, I think. He doesn't need the Council anyway.<_

She'd one-hundred percent meant that, too. Giles had looked up at her shyly, and beamed at her.

"Earth to Buffy? You're thinking about looking at Giles again, aren't you? Naked, I bet; with that glint in your eye." Anya's amused tone drew Buffy back into the present again, and Xander's protestations began anew.

"If you must know, I was thinking about Giles' smile!" Buffy defended herself hotly overtop of Xander's spluttering. "Completely innocent!"

"Buffy," Willow murmured, smiling slowly as she gave Buffy an odd look, that had her feeling even more defensive for some reason.

"Xander, you're going to be late," Buffy interrupted before Willow could say anything else, and Xander moaned as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

"Oh, man!"

 

———

 

Giles sidled up behind her, careful to leave a little space between them, though he leaned down until his head was hovering next to hers, his mouth near her ear.

“Tell me, Slayer-of-mine, is the game afoot?”

She tensed minutely, just briefly, her only tell that he had successfully snuck up on her. He was both proud of himself for that, and disappointed in her unfocused senses. Even with The Bronze as busy as it was, he shouldn’t have been able to surprise her. Just as quickly as she'd tensed, she relaxed and snorted, covering up her surprise as her eyes darted around the level below.

“Just one vamp I’ve seen so far. Pretty young, probably - super sucky at blending in.” Her tone was falsely cheerful, another cover for the hitch in her breath when he continued to hover by her ear. “Sherlock.” She teased.

“Hmm.” He hummed approvingly, having been aware of the same vampire. The noise was not an uncommon reaction of approval as her Watcher, though he usually didn’t let the sound dip so low. Or allow his breath to brush against the curve of her ear. She shivered a little, and he smiled to himself.

It was playing with fire, flirting with her the way he was. The way he had been, of late. Giles had always had a bit of a reckless streak, though.

The two of them continued to stand there silently, watching as bodies shifted on the busy dance floor, and others drank and ate and laughed, each living in their own little world. Unaware of the dangers that lurked just in the shadows, and unaware of the guard that stood above, ready to pounce on said dangers in a moment’s notice.

Giles couldn’t resist turning his nose slightly into Buffy’s hair, breathing in her clean scent of shampoo and _Buffy_. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether it was simply because he knew her, or because of their ‘Watcher/Slayer thing’, but he felt that he could sense her adrenalin rising, her pulse jumping, as she readied for the fight to come.

The carnal parts of his mind found it arousing, but he only chose to acknowledge the pride he felt in her, and pushed everything else down. With a quiet sigh, he opened his eyes and straightened, removing himself from her space.

“I’ll meet you in the alley when you’re finished.” He murmured; she would either stealthily stake the blood-sucker here, hiding herself amongst the crowd, or she would lead the vampire out back where she could do her job without worrying about witnesses.

“One of these days, you and I oughta come here for something other than slaying.” She mused, and he quirked his eyebrow at her.

“This isn’t exactly my scene, Buffy,” He chuckled, and her eyes danced with a humor he couldn’t quite follow.

“Oh, I think it is. I think Ripper is closer to the surface than you let any of us see.” She winked at him, then, and headed toward the stairs with nothing more than a brush of her fingers against the arm of his black coat.

Giles blinked, his tamped-down arousal peeking back up out of its box curiously. He was both interested and terrified to realize that Buffy had known he was flirting, and she had flirted right back.

 

———

 

Buffy released a heavy groan as she collapsed face-first onto her bed, exhausted. The vampire at The Bronze had been easy money, but the rest of the night not so much. Giles had stumbled upon an entire coven near the back alley, young but feisty, and it had taken them the better part of the night to chase them down and dust them all.

It was doubly hard, because Buffy had kept getting distracted while watching Giles fight.

These days he was much more her partner than her teacher; he fought side-by-side with her, showcasing his own talents that he used to only reserve for extreme circumstances. It was something to see, watching her Watcher. The way he ducked and weaved, using the vampires against one another as they attacked uncoordinated. How he staked one, only to spin and flick the wooden stake to his other hand and stab another in the same move. The harried grin on his face, his eyes alight and cheeks flushed with adrenalin. That long black coat, flinging out around him as he twisted and moved, light on his feet as if this were all a dance.

He was efficient, but it wasn’t the brutality of Ripper. It was beautiful, and Buffy half wished the rest of the gang had been around to see him in action, as well.

Then again, she was glad that they weren’t. It felt more private, something shared between just the two of them; an intimacy that might be odd juxtaposed with the slayage but was intriguing nonetheless.

Was she being territorial? Probably. She often was, when it came to her Watcher. _Watcher-mine_. A nickname that reminded all listening what the sitch was. She beamed to herself as she rolled over onto her back, and she didn’t catch on to where her thoughts were going until she was imagining kissing that dark, delighted expression on Giles’ face. Push her fingers through his hair, rumpling it (he should probably get a haircut soon; he didn’t often let it get that long), feel his arms come around her tightly, his long coat enveloping her in its warmth.

Buffy huffed out a breath and opened her eyes, giving her ceiling a strange look. He kissed deeply and desperately, but reverent in a way that willingly gave her control. Responsive to her, but no less intent.

How did she _know_  that?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is E.

He opened his apartment door, shifting the grocery bag in his arm as he kicked the door closed and pocketed his keys. When he lifted his head, he startled to find Buffy sitting almost a third of the way up the staircase, her feet on the step below and her elbows resting atop her knees.

“Please tell me you used your key, at least, and didn’t break in, again.” He sighed, pausing in the entryway.

She didn’t respond; either with a joke or in defense, and simply furrowed her brow at him.

“Is everything alright?” He wondered, when she continued to sit there silently.

“You would do anything you could, right, to make my life easier? To help me be as successful as possible as the Slayer?” She asked.

“Of course.” He answered immediately. “Do you require my assistance for something, Buffy?” He asked softly. “You know that you can ask me anything.” He hesitated, then, and attempted to lighten the mood, “Please do remember, however, that I am not a twenty-three-year-old young woman. Boy gossip is not within my repertoire.”

“Well _that_  I know,” Buffy snorted, and his expression softened at her response. She grew serious again, however, “Tell me about the bond.”

“W-what?” His spine grew stiff, an alarm bell ringing in his mind. “What bond?” He shuffled the paper bag of groceries from one arm to the other.

“Our bond, Giles.” He would’ve been able to tell that she’d rolled her eyes even if he hadn’t been looking at her.

“You - you know all about our b-bond.” He replied as casually as possible, his throat half-closing up, betraying him. He strode into his living room and through into the kitchen, doing his best not to look as if he were running away. He mentally cursed his damn nervous stutter.

“I don’t think that I do.” Buffy argued calmly, staying at her perch on the stairs even as he set his groceries down on the counter and began emptying the bag. “I know that it has nothing to do with fate - that we were chosen for one another by some old cronies that thought they had more power and authority than they really do. I know that the bond has strengthened and grown by circumstance, not by some otherworldly power. I know that power has come from it, though. That it’s created a power, on its own.”

“Created a power?” Giles repeated musingly, resting his hands against the countertop for a moment as he dropped his head and closed his eyes. This was extremely dangerous territory.

“I’m stronger, when you and I are together. I’m more at peace when we aren’t at odds. We’ve proven that.” Buffy pointed out. “Because of that, I’m better at my job.”

“Well... th-that’s good, Buffy.” Giles noted gently, lifting his head and removing his glasses, setting them on the bar-counter out of the way and rubbing his fingers against his eyes. “That’s a part of my job as your Watcher,” He confirmed. They both knew this - history told them that Watchers and Slayers that were more in-tune with one another tended to be more successful at their duties. It went both ways.

“So why do you think lying to me about it somehow helps me?” She wondered, not accusatory, still calm. Giles felt as if his blood had frozen in his veins, and his eyes darted toward his bookshelves in the living room. The diaries seemed untouched, but she could’ve read them and returned them.

“I’ve never lied to you about the relationship between Watcher and Slayer, Buffy.” He insisted seriously, stepping into the living room to be closer to her, to see her.

“No,” She amended. “But you’ve withheld. And lying by omission is still lying - I should know.” She added that last part in a wry tone.

“Buffy, I - ”

“I know that we kissed.” She interrupted him. “I don’t remember it, really, but I know that it happened because of what I told you after the Thanos incident. As always, you were meticulous in your recording.” She nodded her head toward his books, and he couldn’t help but quirk his eyebrow at her. She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do actually know words with more than two syllables. I even know how to spell 'meticulous'.”

“Hmm.” He hummed, smiling a little, the teasing successfully lightening the tone in the room a bit. He stood at the foot of the stairs, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he obliged her.

“I think about that.” She admitted to him, her gaze unwavering from his. “Me kissing you. You kissing me. Apparently, it was good,”

_> \- and he was GOOD at it, too... really good...<_

“You think about it, too. I know you do.”

“Slayers aren’t supposed to read their own Watchers journals,” Giles protested light-heartedly. This was nothing new between them; she’s read them before. Though, she’s never read the particularly recent ones, before...

“Don’t you want to see?” She mused, and he blinked in surprise.

“S-see?” He repeated breathlessly, overwhelmed with nervousness. This was very, very dangerous territory indeed.

“Experience it first-hand.” She nodded rather diplomatically, as if they were discussing something far less volatile. “An experiment, of sorts.”

She was being too intellectual about this. Just how much had they been spending time together, lately? Yet her attitude was somehow turning him on more, than turning him away from the proposition.

“E-e-ex-ex-ex...” He whispered, his eyes widening slightly as he envisioned various ‘experiments’ that they could do.

“Yes,” She pointed at him, recognizing the look in his eye. “That.” He blinked, startled, and was held speechless for a moment by how mature she suddenly seemed. Here they were, speaking about... intimacy, and she wasn’t the one blushing or stuttering or calling him old in her own self-defense. She clearly knew what she wanted.

And she wanted... him to kiss her. Buffy wanted him to kiss her?

“Come here and kiss me, Giles.” As if she could read his mind!

He’d been considering this moment for far too long to hesitate any further. Buffy had voiced her request. Who was he to deny her? Ripper wanted to thrust his fist in the air and whoop with success.

He leaned forward, resting his palms a few steps beneath her feet, his gaze deeply intent as he looked up at her. His eyes tracked her tongue as it drew across her bottom lip. She was anticipating this. Just how long has she been having these considerations? He trembled at the thought.

“Are you certain, Buffy?” He asked her seriously, slowly stepping his hands up another level, pulling his knees up behind him. She rested one hand on the step beside where she sat, straightening her body a little, and nodded, her gaze never leaving his.

He slowly crawled up the steps toward her, until his arms bracketed her body, his hands braced on the step above her, until she was leaning her elbows back against the higher step, until his nose was mere centimeters from hers. Until his torso fit between her knees, pushing them apart a little wider than they had been.

Her breathing was shallow and quick, anticipatory, but he didn’t kiss her, not yet. He wanted to prolong this moment, memorize it to perfection. The Moment, just before, when both parties knew that a kiss was inevitable; the sheer unresolved desire that filled every beat of The Moment. The aching wanting that threatened to blind him, filling his veins with something far better than adrenalin.

“Giles,” She murmured lowly, her voice catching and betraying her desperation, “kiss me.”

His eyes checked hers one more time before he complied, leaning forward that last half-inch to cover her mouth with his own. He didn’t kiss her tentatively, but neither did he kiss her wantonly. His lips were firm and sure as they moved against her soft and receptive ones. He kissed her deeply in one long breath, until he felt her relax into it, and kiss him back.

She moaned, the tip of her tongue touching the curve of his lip, and just like that he was no longer the one in control. He melted over her as he let her plunder his mouth, momentarily basking in how perfect that term was. She robbed him of his self control, ransacked what little of his heart she didn’t already have, ravaged him body and soul. He had been hers from the moment he had laid his eyes on her all those years ago, but now it was in every sense of the term. He would always be hers, forever. In any capacity that she required of him.

The Council would’ve completely lost their minds over this. They thought he’d been compromised before. That past, innocent love was nothing compared to this. This was all-encompassing, a scorching fire that lay waste to all cognitive thought, or care at what the rest of the world opined.

Her knees tightened against his sides as his weight pressed her back more fully against the stairs. If it was uncomfortable against her spine, she didn’t reveal it, and instead pushed her hands through his hair, gripping him, holding him close in a silent threat against his backing away anytime soon.

He wanted to kiss her forever, but his lungs protested otherwise, and he finally had to pull his mouth away, gasping. Pleasantly, she was just as out of breath as he, and he tucked his face against her neck, touching softer kisses to her skin as he spoke,

“Out of all the people I’ve ever kissed, none of them have been you.” Giles lifted his hand to the opposite side of her head, his fingers splaying wide and carding through her hair. “None of them matter to me, anymore. They all pale in comparison. In my mind, you are my first kiss, my best kiss, my only kiss that counts.”

Buffy sucked in a quiet gasp of surprise, and he managed to lean away enough to look her in the eyes, their gazes level with one another in a rare way that made this moment feel even further intimate. Her eyes shone with emotion, and her hands drifted toward his chest almost in slow motion.

“My Watcher.” She murmured fondly, dare-he-think-it lovingly, and she curled a finger inside the collar of his sweater.

He smiled, more with his eyes than with his mouth, and kissed her lips again. This time, there was a little more feeling of urgency on his part, of barely-restrained passion, and he knew that she had figured out his secret.

“You love that,” She turned her head to vocalize her realization, and he didn’t stop kissing her, but turned his attention to her jaw and neck. “Being my Watcher.”

“Of course I do.” He murmured against her skin, following the jugular vein down her throat as he rubbed his fingers against her scalp. She shivered beneath him, her hands tightening into the fabric of his sweater, and she stretched her neck to give him more room.

“But you like it when I call you mine.” She managed to say between quickened breaths.

“Yes,” He hummed his admittance, tracing his kisses back up to her ear, nibbling gently at the lobe.

Her knees immediately gripped his torso even harder, and she tugged his sweater up. He leaned back to balance on his knees as he pulled the garment off over his head, discarding it on the stairs next to them as she grabbed onto his t-shirt and hauled him against her once more. As he began paying equal attention toward the other side of her neck and other ear, she more confidently began running her hands over his torso, around his sides, up his back. He moaned into her ear, completely lost within her by now.

In a haze of arousal only further bolstered by his love for her, he eventually found himself with his shoulders nestled between her thighs, her jeans and panties somewhere on the steps along with his sweater, her hands tangled into his hair again as her head arched back against the steps. He watched her as he kissed her intimately, taking his time, tasting and discovering and basking in this new knowledge he was gathering.

She was sweet and musky, her curls soft and scented of lavender and her own arousal. She was extremely responsive to his tongue, especially when he ran the tip of it along her inner folds. She gripped his fingers fiercely, her core muscles just as strong as the rest of her, and he groaned deeply as he imagined how she would feel around his cock.

“Giles!” She gasped his name as she writhed against his face, intermittently lifting her head to look down at him as he worked her over, before another burst of arousal would course through her and draw her head back once more.

She was so beautiful. Ethereal. The most gorgeous thing he’s ever laid his eyes on, ever touched, ever shared breath with. He wanted to tell her these things, and so much more, but as his mouth was rather occupied, he decided to do his best and show her instead.

“Giles - _Giles_ , oh!” She cried out softly, whimpering for release. He wasn’t denying her, not truly - and he hoped that perhaps one day they could explore that - but just as with their first kiss, he wanted to draw out their first orgasm as long as he could. As it was, he could feel the way his briefs clung wetly to the throbbing bulge within; he was leaking and more than ready to come as well. “Please,” She gasped, and he pressed the flat of his tongue hard against her sensitive bundle of nerves, curling his fingers inside of her just so.

Her back arched suddenly as her thighs and groin squeezed around him harder than ever, her hands disappearing from his head and grabbing whatever else was near in a subconscious effort not to hurt him as she came. He heard one of the bannister spindles crack and splinter within her grip, and she pulsed against his tongue, her hips writhing into his face and hand of their own accord as she rode it out.

“ _Giles_ , _yes_ , ungh,” She grunted between her teeth as she did her best not to shout, her inner muscles gripping his fingers as he held them still within her.

When she finally collapsed against the stairs again, her chest and stomach heaving for air, he slowly slid his fingers in and out, just marginally, keeping a gentle stimulation going as she attempted to recover.

She groaned, loudly, and her hands weaved their way into his hair again, far gentler than before. Petting him, praising him.

God, if that didn’t make him even harder than before.

“Mm, my Watcher. So good,” She babbled almost drunkenly, “so good.”

He moaned desperately, almost abashed, as he felt his balls contract and his cock throb heavily. He curled his hips against the edge of the stairs where he leaned, the only counter-pressure that he could find in the sudden moment, pressing his cheek against Buffy’s thigh as he came in his trousers.

“ _Yes_ ,” Buffy praised with surprised delight at his gasps, continuing to scrape her nails through his hair as he felt her eyes watching him. “That’s it, that’s my Watcher, my Giles,” She crooned, and he whimpered as he jutted his hips one final time and turned his face into her leg, softly mouthing her skin as he breathed heavily. He was mildly embarrassed by coming without having even touched himself, or even undressed other than the removal of his sweater, but his sense of pleasure mostly overrode that embarrassment.

He’d made his Slayer come, he’d given her the best possible pleasure that a person could give - and she’d enjoyed it. He was sure that he’d never felt so pleased in his entire life.

“You do know,” She managed after a long few minutes of catching their breaths and soothing their heart rates, “That this might be another thing now.”

“Another thing?” He questioned, opening his eyes and tilting his cheek atop her thigh so he could look up at her. He knew his gaze was entirely too soft, too adoring, but he didn’t care anymore. He loved her with every cell of his being, and she knew it, and she accepted it.

She nodded very seriously.

“To be the best Slayer that I can be.” She explained. “My Watcher’s gonna have to continue giving me orgasms.” He smiled slowly at her, and she licked her lips. “Not constantly, mind you. But probably at regular intervals. Just in case.” She spoke as if she were describing an instruction manual, and his smile widened. He was giving her an absolutely naughty expression now, a look he knew that he’d perfected as Ripper, and she shivered again.

“That can be arranged.” He growled, crawling up her body again to kiss her deeply. His trousers were uncomfortable now, but he settled his weight against her anyway, and she welcomed it by hugging her knees against his waist again. She kept one hand against the back of his head and slid the other down his back, up beneath his t-shirt to press against overheated skin.

They kissed languidly, until the haze of their orgasms gave way to their physical discomfort. Even though carpeted, the stairs were not kind to Buffy’s back, or Giles’ knees. He didn’t want to end this newfound closeness yet, though, and imagined cuddling her on his bed. A short nap with Buffy in his arms sounded heavenly.

“We should,”

“Helloooo! Anyone - ” Xander’s voice called through the front door as he burst through it, cutting off Giles’ suggestion. Xander froze halfway into the apartment, his words catching high in his throat. “ - _home_?”

“Come on, it’s cold out here,” Willow griped, pushing in behind Xander and closing the door behind them. He subconsciously allowed her to move him, staring wide-eyed at the pair on the stairs with his mouth hanging open.

Giles’ body was covering the important bits, but it was still quite obvious that Buffy’s lower half was naked.

“Oh.” Willow commented when she shifted her gaze from Xander to her other two friends, realizing the situation. Xander was still silent, and Buffy and Giles stayed completely frozen where they were, staring back. Willow blinked, and then gripped Xander’s shoulder and wrenched him around to face the door, turning to face it herself. “Sorry! It was unlocked! We didn’t expect - I mean we never do - I mean, we’ve always just walked in whenever the door wasn’t locked, so,”

She babbled too-loudly as Giles scrambled off of Buffy and she wrenched her panties and jeans back on as quickly as she could.

“Tea!” Giles exclaimed in a pitch too high to be normal, unable to say or think of anything else as he blushed profusely, stumbling on his way to the kitchen. If he ever were to die of embarrassment, it might be now. How absolutely _juvenile_ ; having sex on the stairs of all things, and getting caught to boot.

His joints ached, although his brain was still swimming in a lovely haze of endorphins. He looked down at the darkened stain on his trousers, and kept his hips firmly toward the counter as he prepared tea with shaking fingers.

And damn it, it was highly unlikely that any snuggling would be happening anytime soon, now.

 

———

 

Buffy sat on the couch, distractedly fiddling with Giles’ forgotten sweater in hand as Xander and Willow sat in the chairs opposite, all three of them not quite making eye contact with one another. She nervously brushed her hair behind her ear and glanced toward Giles’ back, watching him wait for the teapot to boil. She imagined he might not leave the kitchen at all, if he could get away with it. His back was tense beneath his white t-shirt, but it was wrinkled and his hair was delightfully mussed and she couldn’t help but smile softly at the sight of him.

Her Watcher.

Her Watcher, who could do _amazing_  things with that mouth of his.

She blushed at the rush of arousal that coursed through her bones again, and yanked her eyes back toward her friends sitting across from her, finding them both looking at her with careful curiosity. She shifted uncomfortably; both because she was unsure of what to say, and because of the pronounced aching in her back. She couldn’t believe she’d just had sex on the _stairs_ , of all places.

God, it had been so hot, though.

She blushed again.

“I feel like we should... talk about this, to move past it, but... I don’t know what to say.” Willow admitted carefully. Xander just blinked at Buffy silently. His mouth was closed now, at least, but he still looked scarred.

“Maybe there isn’t anything to say,” Buffy suggested, shrugging lightly. “Giles and I had sex,” Xander made an odd, high-pitched noise, “and you guys walked in on us. It is what it is.”

“So it... is something?” Willow wondered immediately, and Buffy relaxed significantly as she figured that she knew Willow’s concern, now.

“It’s always been something.” Buffy confirmed softly, glancing toward Giles’ back again. Hearing their conversation, he’d seemed to have relaxed a little bit as well. At Willow’s odd expression, Buffy quickly amended, “Not always _something_ , like that! He was just my mentor at first, you know that. He still is, of course, but...” She paused for a moment as she thought it over. “It’s grown into something different, these last couple of years. Something more. After all, couples are each other’s mentors, in a certain way. They’re just also... more than that. And now, he's more than that.”

“Is that what... this... is?” Willow wondered, gesturing vaguely toward the stairs. “A Watcher/Slayer thing?”

Suddenly Giles stepped into the room, tea tray in hand and researcher-expression on his face. He’d put his glasses back on, but his rumpled hair only made Buffy’s heart skip at the familiar-yet-domestic look. He set the tray down on the coffee table between their seats, and sat on the edge of the couch cushion beside Buffy.

“It is not - it's not as simple as, as that,” Giles explained, sounding serious and almost a little defensive as he prepared four cups without asking if anyone else actually wanted any. They all thought to let him perform the familiar action, as his fingers were still noticeably shaking slightly.

Buffy glanced toward his lap and noticed the slightly darker patch in the fabric, and gently set his sweater on top of his thigh. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, pressing his lips together in embarrassment, but looked thankful as he carefully tugged the fabric further overtop of his crotch and covered the evidence of their lovemaking.

He cleared his throat, and risked a glance toward the other two, seeing that they’d both averted their eyes again. Buffy brushed her fingers against Giles’ hand soothingly but then let him be.

“Buffy and I aren’t under the control of any kind of magic, or mystical bond. We are free to make our own choices and decisions. Perhaps those decisions are a bit... influenced by our positions in one another’s life, but that’s no different than any other couple really.”

“So you are a couple, then?” Xander finally spoke, sounding a bit light-headed.

Buffy and Giles both glanced at one another again, and then faced him and nodded at the same time without any vocalized agreement.

“Yes.” Buffy confirmed aloud, and reached to take Giles’ right hand in her left, curling her fingers beneath his palm as their hands rested on the cushion between them. He relaxed significantly, and even smiled a little.

“So it’s likely that we might walk in on... again...” Xander went a little pale, and Giles pushed a cup of tea across the table in his direction as he lifted his own cup to his mouth.

“Highly likely.” Buffy confirmed much too seriously with another nod of her head, and Giles coughed and spurted his sip of tea back into his cup.

"How long has this been romantic?" Willow wondered. "I mean, you know we've noticed the two of you being so close. Have you been..." She gestured vaguely with her hands, instead of putting words to it. "This whole time?"

"No!" Buffy promised. "No, no - I mean..." She looked thoughtful. "Actually, we have been rather romantic for a while, haven't we? But we weren't having sex!"

"No, no, no sex." Giles confirmed, shaking his head as well.

"So... what, was that like," Xander gestured toward the stairs, and both Buffy and Giles looked briefly chagrined. Xander's mouth fell open. "Are you telling me you're first time together was _on the stairs_?"

"Yes, well, I'm not exactly proud of that lack of self-control on my part," Giles glowered, and Buffy snorted in disagreement.

"You should be." She replied seriously, and Giles very carefully avoided all of their gazes as he took another long drink from his cup. Buffy stared at his long fingers curled around that tiny cup, and remembered how good they felt inside of her. She blushed profusely and quickly lifted her own mug to her lips, hopefully hiding her reaction.

“I’m sorry that we interrupted.” Willow murmured honestly, sounding rather concerned about it.

“Oh, you didn’t interrupt, not really,” Buffy assured her. Before she could expound on that at all, Giles butted in,

“If we are quite finished discussing _our private life_ ,” He left his statement open-ended, his expression saying everything. All three of the others pressed their mouths closed and nodded dutifully.

They sat in awkward silence for a long minute.

“Was there a reason the two of you came barging in here?” Giles wondered with a sigh, setting his cup of tea down. He could be cuddling with Buffy right now, but instead...

“Oh! Right.” Xander was the one to speak up. “Demon on 3rd Street. Tall, scaly, gangly arms.”

“Did it speak? Make any distinguishable sounds?” Giles questioned, more alert with the possible threat.

“More importantly - was it oozing anything?” Buffy added, and Giles glanced over to give her a wry look.

“Hey, covered in ooze is a total turn off! Trust me. I am _not_  slaying that thing just to come back here covered in its guts or saliva or whatever other nasties it could get on me.”

“Hm, you do have the worst of luck getting spit on by demons,” Giles mused thoughtfully.

“Exactly. Not conducive for good times at all.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about your sex life, anymore?” Xander grimaced.

“Sorry,” Buffy winced. “He’s very distracting.”

“Am I?” Giles brightened considerably, obviously touched and pleased by her observation.

“Oh yes,” She insisted, shifting sideways to look at him more directly. “I mean, you have been for a while, but, now I can admit it.” She smiled warmly at him, and he smiled widely back.

“Hopefully not during patrols,” He suddenly worried, and she reached to grasp his knee, assuring him,

“Oh no, never then. We’re like, in the Slayer-zone then. Just, like every other minute of the day.”

His worried expression slid away just as quickly as it had appeared, and his gaze softened deeply. Willow shifted in her chair, glancing toward Xander. They weren’t touching other than Buffy’s hand on Giles' knee, but the air in the room still felt awfully intimate all of a sudden.

“Every minute?” Giles repeated wondrously, and Buffy bit her lip in a rather shy gesture, but nodded. His smile grew a little intent, a hint of sexy (more than his every-day sexy, which she was quick to admit was something he’s had for a long time now), and he leaned a little closer toward her.

"3rd Street demon!" Xander called out, waving his hands at them to catch their attention again. "Is the Slayer gonna slay, tonight, or what? Should I call Faith?"

"Don't call Faith!" Buffy immediately ordered, facing Xander with a wide, threatening gaze. "She'll rip our heads off for making her fly back here for something so ridiculous." Without looking back toward Giles, she elbowed him. "Don't you have a book to read, or something?"

He huffed, but shifted back to stand up, holding his sweater as casually as he could in front of his trousers.

"Try to have a better description of the demon by the time I come back down." He warned them, giving them a serious look over the rim of his glasses, before he turned and made his way up the stairs.

When he did return, he was in new trousers, shirt, suspenders and all, and his hair was even combed. Buffy lamented that, but now they were all in research mode, so she didn't mull over his appearance any longer. Wouldn't be fair to their friends if she got distracted again.


	7. Chapter 7

“Don’t look at me!” Buffy wailed as soon as she opened the door, bursting through and bounding up the stairs before Giles even fully turned from where he’d been facing his bookshelves.

Willow entered the apartment next, along with Anya and Xander behind. They all looked amused, though Anya in particular had a wry grin on her face.

“Catch the demon, I take it?” Giles figured calmly, and Xander answered as he closed the door,

“Yep. It caught a little of Buffy, too.” He smirked, but Giles grew concerned.

“Was she injured?” He asked, already moving toward the kitchen where he kept a first-aid kit below the sink.

“She got thrown,” Willow confirmed, “but you know how she is when she’s in the zone. I couldn’t tell how bad.”

“She managed to stake it after it jumped her while she was down. It pretty much exploded all over her.” Xander explained, and Giles grimaced along with the rest of them. He could imagine how that went, and what Buffy’s choice words in response no doubt were.

“Totally gross.” Anya noted.

“Wait, what about demon-goo being a turn-off?” Willow pointed out when Giles started up the stairs. Giles laughed softly and rolled his eyes.

“I’ve seen Buffy covered in all manners of gore and grime. She needn’t worry.”

“Are we _sure_  they weren’t a thing before this week?” Xander stage-whispered to the other Scoobies.

Giles knocked on the closed bathroom door, announcing his presence before turning the handle and quickly slipping into the room.

“Giles!” Buffy complained, half-undressed as she stuffed her soiled clothes into a plastic bag that he kept stashed here for exactly such occasions.

She was indeed covered in goo; greenish slime caked her hair and oozed from her fingers as she handled her clothing. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her, though.

“Are you bleeding anywhere?” He asked calmly, doing his utmost to look her in the eyes and not stare at her bra. He set the first-aid atop the counter and sat down on the edge of the bathtub. “Sit,” He gestured toward the closed toilet-lid opposite him, “let me see.”

“My knee is just scraped up a little,” Buffy admitted, wiggling out of her jeans and balling them up before stuffing them into the bag with the rest of her outerwear. She then sat and lifted her leg, allowing Giles to take her foot and rest it atop his own thigh as he took a closer look at her wound.

“No stitches necessary,” He confirmed, one hand gentle on the side of her knee while he reached for the first-aid with his other hand. “Let me disinfect it, and then you can wash up if you’d like. I’ll bring in some clean clothes for you.”

“Thanks, Watcher-mine.” Buffy told him softly, and he glanced up over the rim of his glasses at her face, returning the smile for a moment.

He cleaned up her wound efficiently, but after tossing the soiled cloth he kept his hands on her leg, one beneath her knee and the other cupping her ankle. He stroked her skin with his thumbs, marveling at its softness. Even he sometimes found it hard to believe that such strength, such power, resided beneath this delicate human exterior.

His hand on her knee slowly slid upward, until his fingers curled around her hip, and he lifted his gaze slowly from her leg to her eyes. As soon as their eyes met, they both leaned forward, meeting in the middle with a rough kiss. As their lips moved together, it became more tender; he gave her sipping touches, warm and deep, soothing them both.

His hand drifted up her side, across her stomach, and she flinched and broke her mouth from his, gasping. His fingers froze against the side of her bra, and he felt his cheeks burn hot.

"S-sorry, sorry," He stammered, out of breath and embarrassed for getting carried away. He pulled his hands back to himself, and leaned away from her.

“Giles, I need to shower.” Buffy reminded him softly, pulling him back into focus. She looked thoroughly, delightfully kissed, and he couldn't help but wet his lips with his tongue again, tasting a hint of her chapstick. “And the others are still downstairs. We talked about a study group after patrol, so...”

“So I should probably leave you be,” Giles figured, smiling wryly as he maneuvered her leg from his lap and stood. He closed up the first-aid, grabbing it and her bag of dirty clothes, and put his free hand on the door handle. “Go ahead and hop in. I’ll bring by some clothes for you.”

He left before she got totally naked and he lost all of his resolve. After digging out something for her to wear (a pair of boxers, his only joggers with a drawstring she could cinch, and a tee shirt), Giles took the dirties downstairs to his washer and got that going as well.

“So, tell me: is demon-gunk a turn-off for the Watcher?” Anya teased from the living room, and Giles pursed his lips.

“None of your business.” He replied.

"Might want to toss this in, as well," Willow informed him quietly, while Xander and Anya were distracted in a mild argument about demon-goo. She touched her fingers against the front of his shoulder, and raised her eyebrow in amusement before she turned and headed back toward her spot on the floor by the couch.

Giles looked down at his sweater, and blushed deeply again as he realized he'd gotten a bit of the gunk from Buffy's hair on his shirt. He quickly fumbled it off over his head, forgetting in his haste to remove his glasses first, and getting momentarily tangled up.

He took a deep breath and settled his nerves, smoothing down his undershirt as the washer began the spin cycle. Perhaps Willow was the only one that noticed. She wouldn't make a big deal out of it... would she?

They allowed him to turn on some classical music as they each began to dig out their books and notes for their respective classes, though they made sure the music was only quiet background noise. They didn’t tease him about Buffy any more, much to his relief, at least until she came back down the stairs, barefoot and smelling like his soap.

“Well, don’t you look cozy.” Anya drawled, giving the Slayer a once-over. His tee shirt was large on Buffy's small frame, the collar almost completely hanging off of one shoulder, and she’d had to roll up the bottoms of the sweatpants as well. Her damp hair was swept up into a loose clip, shorter tendrils framing her face, and Giles was sure he’d never been so in love in his entire life.

 

———

 

She knew it was kind of dorky, but she hadn’t stopped smiling since she’d lathered his shampoo into her hair. Buffy was no small fan of her beauty products, but there was something that spoke deeply to her soul about smelling like Giles.

Wearing his clothes was just bonus points after that, and she wondered if she’d ever felt so comfortable before now. As she combed her hair out before putting it up into a clip she’d thoughtfully left behind in his bathroom weeks ago, she smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

Yeah, she was being a total dork right now.

When she rejoined everyone downstairs, she tried to act as casual as possible, and even managed to ignore Anya’s teasing. She could feel Giles watching her as she fetched one of his Encyclopedias of The Undead from the shelf, but he quickly got up from the couch and disappeared into the kitchen before she could comment on his adoring expression.

A few minutes later, Giles settled onto the other end of the couch from her with a heavy sigh, a contented smile on his face as he slowly swirled his glass of scotch in his hand, listening to the radio and the occasional chatter as the gang helped one another with their studies when needed.

Buffy stretched her legs a little to press her toes against the side of Giles’ thigh, wanting a bit of physical contact even with her focus on the book in her hands. He settled his unoccupied hand atop her ankle, his touch warm and soothing around the joint. She remembered his touch against her side, her stomach, and while he's touched her there before on other occasions when she's been injured... this evening had been decidedly different. The switch between the healing touch of her Watcher and the admiring touch of her lover had been seamless and extremely arousing.

Even covered in stinky demon-goo.

She curled her toes against his thigh again, smiling to herself, and forced her attention back to the words in front of her. They were in the middle of a study sesh right now. And even that lovely little pattern he was stroking against her ankle bone wasn't gonna distract her from getting a little extra knowledge in before the night was over.

Well, mostly.

As the five of them traded opinions and observations about their various research, Giles eventually shifted the pattern his thumb was taking along the side of her foot. The rubbing turned into kneading, and then he set his glass down and pulled Buffy’s feet into his lap, beginning a proper massage. She rolled onto her butt to lean her back against the armrest and sit more comfortably as he worked, both of them individually distracted as she kept on reading the book in her hands, and he gazed into the distance as he wracked his brain for answers to the Scoobies questions.

She hummed under her breath when he kneaded out a particularly rough knot under the ball of her foot, and managed to turn the sound into something more thoughtful, going so far as to run her finger along a random line of words on the page. So _not_  cool to start making sexy noises in a room surrounded by her friends.

No one seemed to catch on, so she relaxed and managed to legitimately return her focus to the encyclopedia in front of her.

"Maybe we need to get one of these for extraterrestrials, too?" She mused. "According to Tony, aliens are a pretty big deal these days. Not to mention every-day humans with powers - _man_ , why can't one of us be like that? It'd certainly help _me_  out, to have a superhero sidekick."

"Not a bad thought." Giles considered of acquiring another textbook, nodding as his fingers continued their magic on her feet and ankles. "I'll see if I can get my hands on one."

" _Tony_  - I can't believe you're on a first name basis with _Iron Man_ ," Xander sighed dreamily.

"Sidekick?" Willow chuckled. "If you were working with a superhero, who says _you_  wouldn't be the sidekick?"

"The Slayer isn't anyone's sidekick." Giles answered immediately, with that tone of factual assurance that always simultaneously made him sound like the actual smartest man in the room, and also fairly pompous.

Buffy beamed, and Anya rolled her eyes.

"You're just sucking up to her because she gives you orgasms." Anya replied dryly.

"That's not true!" Giles protested.

"She isn't giving you orgasms?" Anya raised her eyebrows in surprised concern, and Buffy butt in defensively,

" _That's_  true!"

"Dear Lord," Giles groaned, rubbing his fingers against his eyes in frustration, "I meant that I'm not _sucking up_ ," He mocked Anya's lingo.

"Are you sure this physics class is _really_  that important for my magical training?" Willow asked loudly in regards to her own homework, giving the conversation an abrupt one-eighty.

"Yes, Willow," Giles sighed gratefully, and returned both hands to Buffy's feet, resuming his pattern as if they hadn't been interrupted, answering Willow's questions about various physics theories as best that he could. "I was always more adept with history than with the science of things, but, I can at least help you further understand the connection between the magic that we know, and the science that your professor would know."

“Guys,” Xander furrowed his brow in a mildly uncomfortable expression, “you’re doing it again.”

“What?” Buffy wondered, lowering her book slightly. Giles’ fingers paused against her feet, again, much to her disappointment. After the night’s rough patrol, the massage felt amazing.

“All the casual intimate touching,” Xander gestured toward them, apparently having only now just noticed, and Giles looked down at Buffy’s feet in his lap as if he were surprised to find them there. “It’s not really all that bad,” Xander added quickly, “But I know how massages usually end, and I’m just sayin', maybe just cool it ‘til we leave?”

“Not all massages have to end with sex, Xander.” Giles huffed, rolling his eyes. “In fact, most _don't_.” He gave Xander and Anya a wry look, knowing that they probably proved that point otherwise. “I’ve been giving Buffy massages for years; this is nothing - ”

“Augh, I don’t need to know that!” Xander whined, and Buffy snorted.

“Platonic, Xan,” She rolled her eyes. “Strictly training-related feel goods.”

She wriggled her toes briefly against Giles, giving him a little smirk. They both had to admit that training hadn't always been a platonic event, anymore, even before their... moment, on the stairs. Her lover blushed adorably, and took another drink of his scotch to focus his thoughts and settle his spiked heart-rate.

Slayer senses sometimes came in such good use. She loved to make him blush, make him stammer - it held such contrast against the other moments. The private moments, when he would raise his eyebrows at her, quirk his lips just so. When he would tilt his head, his eyes darkening with aroused intent. That man could undress her with his eyes in a way that no other person could. Silently understanding one another was indeed 'a Watcher/Slayer thing', but it served to accentuate the intimate moments too.

And, sometimes unfortunately for the others, it served for many more spontaneous, half-uncontrolled interactions.

He had a little bit of a hard-on, and she pushed her heel down against it, a small movement unnoticed by the others but very well felt by him. He sucked in a breath and grabbed onto her foot warningly, giving her a sideways look. She smiled innocently, and wriggled her other foot.

"It's getting late." Giles announced suddenly, holding both of Buffy's feet firmly still in his lap. She bit her lip not to laugh aloud, picking up on the hammering pulse of his heart. "You all still need to walk back to your homes, yet."

"It's not _that_  late," Xander protested lightly, looking apologetic. "I didn't mean to make you - You know that I totally approve of this, right? It just, it gives me the wiggins, that's all; after having to defend you two for so long through high school, and now..."

"Defend us?" Buffy wondered, raising her eyebrow and tugging her feet out of Giles' grasp, sitting up. "What?"

"Yeah, you know, the rumors..." Xander trailed off, and Willow winced as Giles groaned.

"Bloody hell..."

" _What_  rumors?" Buffy demanded, sufficiently distracted from turning her Watcher on.

"You're kidding, right?" Anya snorted, and began counting on her fingers, "Every free period, you're in the library, and yet still barely passed half your classes. Weirdly intense conversations in the hall. Driving together in the mornings, sometimes leaving together in the afternoon. That moronic sign - I mean really, how many times does a library no one really uses need reorganizing? Loud music, grunting, banging around, leaving the room all sweaty afterwards - "

"Alright, alright!" Giles huffed, getting to his feet and grabbing his drink, stalking away from them for a moment.

"Huh." Buffy mused thoughtfully. A part of her was disappointed that she'd somehow missed hearing these rumors, but then again, they probably would've weirded her out back then. "Well... thanks for having our backs, I guess."

"Of course." Xander raised his eyebrows. "We're the Scooby Gang. Plus, I mean, back then _that_  idea was totally insane." He laughed hesitantly. "Not that it's insane now."

"Not insane." Willow agreed, and then half-smiled. "It's actually super adorable. Younger-me would be jealous."

Buffy caught Giles rubbing his fingers against his eyes again, and she smiled comfortingly as she stood up.

"Well, now that you totally ruined the mood," Anya smiled in amusement as she patted Xander's back, but Buffy shook her head.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that." Buffy's comforting expression shifted into a smirk as she stepped closer to Giles. "It's kinda hot, now; thinking of that big ol' table in the library... it was pretty sturdy, you know. Ooo, or; hiding behind the counter while you gotta act all calm and collected while the kids are studying,"

"Stop," Giles moaned, closing his eyes, and Anya laughed.

"Mood definitely not ruined." She noted, and tugged Xander into standing position as well, closing his books for him and tucking them into his bag.

"What, we're getting kicked out just so they can have sex?!" Xander whined as Anya practically dragged him toward the door. Willow followed them more calmly, biting her lip to keep from laughing in amusement as Anya argued that they themselves could go home and have sex, too. Giles set his drink down and followed them as well, looking decidedly less embarrassed now that he realized he and Buffy would soon be alone again.

"Yes." Giles agreed to Xander's question seriously, nodding. "Goodbye." He closed the door on them, just in time for Buffy to slap his ass.

She giggled as she bounded up the stairs, and while he was briefly surprised, he growled playfully as he turned and chased after her.

 

———

 

Two weeks later, while out patrolling with the whole gang, Buffy got a bit caught up after a fight, and pushed Giles against the side of a mausoleum, kissing him senseless.

“Buffy - Buffy, we’re in a _cemetery_ ,” He protested, but his traitorous hands held her closer instead of pushing her away. She kissed him deeply, her tongue dancing with his, and then her fingers began to make quick work of his belt and trousers beneath his long coat. Oh, bugger, alright; he was fairly caught up in the adrenalin and emotions of the fight, too.

“So hot,” She gasped, latching her mouth onto his neck, “damn coat,”

“This is so disrespectful,” He moaned, but he lifted her up against him and flipped their positions, holding her back against the wall. He shoved her skirt up out of the way, tugging hard at her panties until he ripped them off. She didn’t complain; only curled her legs around his waist, rubbing herself against his hard length jutting out of his pants.

“Quick, quick, before the others,” She was aware enough, then, that they could quite easily be caught. But she didn’t care, too far gone in her desire, and dragging him into it right with her. He could never deny her much, not for long. He shoved her ruined panties into his pocket and cradled her face in his hands, tilting her head up so he could give her a proper kiss.

They both sighed with relief when he entered her, and he wasted no time before thrusting his hips in a hard and urgent pace. Their clothing rustled and their breathing was far too loud - if they didn’t attract the attention of the Scoobies, they surely would attract any remaining bloodsuckers hanging about.

“God, you did so well tonight,” Giles praised, vaguely recalling her form as she had fought off two vampires at once. She keened into his ear, pleased. “So beautiful. Still a little too showy, but,” She nipped at his earlobe at that, and he gasped, his rhythm faltering briefly. His hips bucked hard against hers, and she gripped her arms around him tightly, gasping softly against his skin.

“Make me come, Giles,” She murmured, and he groaned, forgetting about his Watcher assessments for the fight. “Like you know how to do so well,” She teased him a little, and in retaliation he fitted a hand between them, wetting his thumb with her arousal before rubbing it over the little bundle of nerves between her legs. “Fuck!” She hissed, clenching tightly around him, panting now.

“Mm, you feel so good,” He told her in a slow, growling tone; that voice she’d mentioned before that apparently did unspeakable things to her.

“Yes yes yes,” She preened, her head jerking back against the wall as she came, her limbs and her core squeezing around him demandingly.

He pressed his mouth to her neck, muffling his own noises as he came as well, driving into her until they were both spent.

They gasped against one another for a half-minute, both amazed and pleased and mildly embarrassed by the events that had just transpired. All in all it had taken them less than five minutes, and Giles smiled rather sheepishly as he eased Buffy to her feet.

Her grin was dangerous, aloof, and proud. It made his cock twitch, and if he were a younger man he’d consider taking her again very soon. As it was, by the time they got back to his apartment, he was quite certain he'd be ready to implement some of the thoughts he was considering.

They each quickly put themselves back in order, straightening clothes and smoothing hair, their gazes never wandering from each other’s. He reached out and touched her neck tenderly; he’d accidentally bitten her a little. She wasn’t bleeding, but there was a mark that the collar of her jacket didn’t quite hide completely.

She smiled and wrapped her fingers around his, bringing them up to hold them against her lips in a soft kiss. He smiled warmly in return and brushed his thumb against her cheek. The tenderness of the moment seemed jarring after their rough-and-tumble quickie, but it also felt natural. It was quite indicative of their relationship, to be honest. Sparks of high emotion interspersed with the deepest of affection.

“Hey!” Anya greeted, out of breath, suddenly appearing from around the other side of the mausoleum. “I found em!” She called over her shoulder, and while she was distracted, Buffy and Giles put a few inches of distance between themselves. Soon Willow, Tara, Dawn, and Xander appeared behind Anya, all short of breath as well.

“There you are!” Xander sounded relieved, and leaned his elbow on Dawn’s shoulder. “We thought we heard a scuffle but couldn’t find you guys.” He glanced around. “No vamps?”

“Not anymore.” Buffy smirked, tugging Mr. Pointy from the inner lining of her jacket and twirling it around. Dawn gasped.

“Buffy! You’ve been bit!”

Giles tried not to choke as Willow darted forward and pulled at Buffy’s collar. Buffy swatted her back before she got too close a look, much to Giles’ relief. The bruising did not really match that of the sharp incisors of a vampire.

“Barely a love bite,” Buffy rolled her eyes, playing it off. “I’ve had worse.”

Giles raised his eyebrow, knowing a challenge when he heard one.

“Maybe we should get that checked out,” He drawled. “Don’t want it to get... infected.” His voice was still a little lower than usual, rough with arousal. Hopefully the gang would just write it off as him being winded after a scuffle with vampires.

“I guess we’ve dealt with our fair share of spooks, tonight,” Buffy mused in agreement. She was done slaying for the night; there was only one man she wanted to make writhe, now. He could read it all in her eyes, and he knew his gaze was responding in kind. They needed to get going, soon, before the others picked up on their energy - Dawn didn't know about them, yet, as they were still trying to figure out how to break the news to her.

"Why does it smell like sex?" Anya furrowed her brow and sniffed.

"Caught a couple of 'em going at it." Buffy answered almost too quickly. Giles quirked his eyebrow just slightly at her, and tucked his hand into his pocket, wrapping his fingers around the scrap of fabric there. Buffy grinned slowly.

"Oh, two for the price of one! Nice." Dawn gave her sister a high-five, and Buffy nodded.

"Oh yeah - you know that feeling when we go to the mall and find out our favorite brands are on sale?" Buffy replied, and Giles smiled to himself as the group began to meander their way back toward the entrance of the cemetery. Her young-woman habits used to annoy him, but now he found it delightful compared with the warrior side of herself. "This was _almost_  as good as that feeling."

Oh, she was really asking for it now.

Since it was such a mild-weathered night, they'd all walked from their respective homes, so as they strolled down the sidewalk in no hurry to return, Giles managed to maneuver Buffy and himself to the back of the group.

"No better than a shopping trip, hm?" He murmured, his hands in his pockets as he turned to brush his lips against her ear briefly. She shivered and knocked her shoulder into his arm, an affectionate bump that wouldn't look too weird to the rest of the gang if any of them had seen.

"A _good_  shopping trip," She reasoned teasingly. He huffed a half-laugh, draping his arm across her shoulders casually.

After a few steps, seeing that everyone else was focused on their own conversations ahead, he drifted his hand down her back, and then over her skirt, giving her butt a little squeeze. She jumped and smacked him, snorting, and they both yanked their hands to themselves when Tara glanced back to give them an odd look.

As soon as Tara faced forward again, though, Buffy turned and pushed him against the nearest tree, hiding them behind it as she kissed him hard, sucking on his bottom lip. He tried to kiss her back, but she scraped her fingers through his hair and gripped it firmly, holding his head in place as she took complete control over him. His limbs felt like molten lead, heavy and useless, as Buffy stroked her tongue within every inch of his mouth. She made him forget all about his later plans for her; he was content to stand right here and let her do whatever she wanted to him. He could probably come again, right here against this tree, in public, _again_.

Just as suddenly, her warmth was gone, and she was yanking him back onto the sidewalk, forcing him to move with her as she walked a little quickly to catch up with the group, acting as if that little interlude had never happened.

He blinked and licked his lips, stumbling to keep up for a moment, and reached up to straighten his askew glasses just as Dawn turned back to say something to them. The younger woman hesitated, giving him an odd look. He cleared his throat.

"Did you get injured, too, Giles? You're limping." Dawn noted.

Buffy snorted.

"I'm fine." He managed.

"Very fine." Buffy muttered under her breath, and he cleared his throat again.

"You've got make-out hair again, G." Anya laughed, and Xander made a warning noise that was, in a way, far more telling than Anya's teasing.

Dawn glanced at them, and then tilted her head thoughtfully as she looked back at Giles and Buffy. Giles held his breath. Regardless of the change in his and Buffy's relationship, Dawn truly was like a pseudo-daughter to him, and he would be happiest if the relationship met with her approval.

"Ohhh," She grinned, and laughed. "You kids." She shook her head fondly, and turned back forward, continuing her conversation with Xander as if nothing huge had just happened at all.

"Uh..." Giles wasn't sure what to say to that. He wasn't sure what that meant.

"Little Sis _approves_?" Xander blurted with surprise, and Dawn snorted.

"Are you kidding - I've been praying for this for _years_. Buffy talks in her sleep, sometimes, you know - you should have heard her some nights. _'Oh, Giles,'_ "

" _Dawn_!" Buffy protested at her sister's high-pitched mocking. "That is _not_  true!"

"How would you know?" Dawn challenged. "You were asleep!"

"Oh, we should trade stories," Willow suggested gleefully. "You should hear her in the dorm sometimes,"

Buffy growled and made to go after the other two women, but Giles gripped her elbow tightly, holding her back as Dawn guffawed and skipped ahead even further.

"Harboring dirty thoughts about your Watcher, Buffy?" Giles murmured warningly, pulling her to a stop. He made a disappointed sound with his tongue against his teeth, though he was secretly delighted and had to claw at his resolve to keep the smile from his face. Buffy raised her eyebrow as she folded her arms across her chest.

"What are ya gonna do about it?" She challenged, still half-pouting about her friends.

Giles laughed huskily; oh, he still had his plans. Buffy swallowed at the sound, her eyes widening slightly with arousal. He glanced away from her briefly, noting that they were near the corner where the shop was located and the gang would all have to go their separate ways anyhow. Though the Magic Box was not far from his own apartment, or Buffy's house, he wasn't inclined to wait any longer.

"I think," He mused slowly, guiding her toward the shop with him, now, forgetting about the others, "you and I need to have a long, and thorough, talk about this."

"Long and thorough." Buffy repeated distractedly.

"Mhm," He nodded encouragingly with a smile, turning her to lead her in front of him to the front door. He dug his keys from his pocket as he pressed his body against hers, trapping her against the door as he blindly felt around with the key for the lock. "A very... meticulous conversation."

She was thrumming with arousal, he could feel it, and kept herself plastered to his front even as he swung the door open behind her. She stared at his mouth anxiously, waiting for his next words, and his smile widened. He was absolutely enraptured by her. In the darkened, enclosed building, he could smell her arousal too; could imagine how slick she was for him.

He groaned, and moved with her further into the shop with a push of his hips. The door swung shut behind him and he locked it subconsciously, his mind already three steps ahead. Her chest was heaving again, drawing his attention, and he lifted a hand to draw his finger down between her breasts, hooking the tip into her low-cut collar, tugging just a little. He drifted his head closer to her.

"I see you shiver with... antici- ...pation," He purred the last part of the word against her ear, and her hands gripped the back of his jacket tightly.

"Oh my God, was that - ?"

He didn't let her finish her startled question, however, and covered her mouth with his own, kissing her even more deeply than when she'd practically accosted him against that tree. He reached down to grip her butt again as he bucked against her, holding her firmly against him as her legs trembled.

"Holy fuck!" She gasped in surprise, unprepared for that small but pleasurable orgasm.

"Mm, a holy fuck sounds _much_  better than a blouse sale," He mused with a smirk, his cheek pressed against hers as he shrugged off his jacket, letting it fall to the floor as they stumbled their way back toward the training room.

Buffy moaned with desire, pushing her hands up beneath both his sweater and his undershirt, sliding against his stomach and chest. He raised his arms to allow her to remove the clothing, and gave her a moment to play with the smattering of hair on his chest, because it felt too damn good to the both of them. Her thumbs brushed across his nipples and he hissed, then moved her hands from him and pushed at the waistband of her skirt.

She shoved it down to her ankles herself as he trailed a line of open-mouthed kisses down her neck, his fingers working at his belt and trousers with record speed. Their clothes scattered like breadcrumbs from the front door all the way toward the mat they eventually landed on, but he'd worry about the clutter later. Much later.

He hummed distracted words the whole way, enjoying the way her body moved against his, skin against skin. He couldn't think straight, and although he'd had plans to drag this out tonight, he settled for tucking his face against her neck as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She dug her heels in, urging him to move against her, but he determinedly kept a slow pace, wanting to memorize every second and every feeling she invoked.

By the time he finally came, neither of them cared about how loud they were being. If anyone had happened to walk by on the street, they'd probably been able to hear them. It certainly wouldn't have been a good idea to do this at Buffy's, where Dawn was currently staying for a long weekend. Approving or not, they’d probably have scarred the poor girl for life.

Giles giggled at the thought, absolutely delirious as he lay in a boneless heap atop his Slayer. Buffy was carding her fingers through his hair, probably not entirely certain as to why he was laughing, but she joined in anyway. Soon enough he had to roll off of her, the two of them sprawled on their backs naked as the day they were born, giggling so much that tears were rolling from their eyes.

"I've never come that many times in one go before." Buffy admitted with amazement, and Giles blurted out a loud laugh before he could hold it in; the absurdity of that statement being voiced in this room. She grinned and started laughing again though, too, and it wasn't long before they were both curled up and clutching at their sides, gasping for breath again.

After many minutes they eventually calmed down, and Giles turned his head to look over at her. She was already looking at him, a look of complete adoration on her face.

"I want to make you laugh like that for the rest of my life." She murmured affectionately and seriously. He blinked, and pushed himself up onto his elbow.

"I would have to concur with that sentiment." He agreed softly. She reached out to touch his chest again, but groaned and rolled her eyes as she looked back up toward the ceiling.

"God, I thought for sure I'd fuck the librarian out of you - but I think instead I fucked the librarian _back into_  you,"

He made a noise of affront, but was more amused by her words than hurt by them, and giggled again.

"Maybe it just didn't take." He figured, raising his eyebrows innocently when she turned an incredulous look toward him. "Perhaps you should try again."

"I said _regular intervals_ , you horn-dog! If it weren't for my Slayer powers, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to _walk_  right now."

"Can you walk right now?" He questioned huskily, reaching out to stroke his fingers lightly along her thighs. She flinched away, extremely sensitive, and he smiled knowingly.

"Probably not." She admitted in the same accusatory tone of voice, and his smile widened. He grasped her fingers and lifted them from his chest to his mouth, kissing them softly. "And anyway," She turned her head to look at him again, "I'll be surprised to see _you_  ready to go again any time soon, after _all that_."

"Alas," He sighed in disappointment of biology, but then gave her a naughty smirk. "but we both know I don't need that to make you come."

"Oh God, don't say things like that to me right now," She moaned, closing her eyes and rolling over to tuck herself against him. "If I get even a little horny again, I'm gonna _die_."

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close, tangling their legs together as he peppered loving kisses over her nose, cheeks, and mouth.

"I love you, my dear." He told her warmly, nuzzling his nose against hers, and she pressed one hand flat against his chest and wrapped the other around his waist, cuddling him tightly.

"And I, you, Watcher-mine." She returned softly, though she was teasing him a little again too, with her verbage.

They both chuckled again, and lay there in a blissful doze until Giles awoke at some point enough to note how chilly the room had become. He guided her up and to the couch in the back of the room, and they immediately resumed their previous poses, curled up together beneath a throw blanket this time.

In the morning, they would no doubt have to face Dawn’s questions and curiosity, and they would have to resume their research they’d agreed to help Stark with - but for now, the rest of the night, she was all his.

The rest of the world could wait.

* * *

 


	8. Bonus

Giles shifted his shoulders nervously as he headed up the steps to the stage, and Buffy could tell that he wished he had his glasses to fuss with. Xander, Faith, and Anya all let out a loud whoop and cheer over the chorus of polite applause from the rest of The Bronze, and Giles glanced over at them in wary acknowledgement.

Buffy watched avidly as he accepted the acoustic guitar from the band member, settling distractedly onto the stool as he fiddled with it a bit, familiarizing himself with its tone and feel. Buffy hadn't seen him play since she'd caught him in his living room what felt like a long time ago. Now she was free to observe the way his fingers danced across the frets, the way his arm shifted smoothly as he strummed a pick over the strings.

He glanced up toward the crowd as the applause quieted, as if he'd forgotten they were there for a moment, and swallowed and shifted on his seat again. He gave them a curt nod in appreciation, and then looked back down toward the instrument propped up on his thigh.

Quite suddenly, Buffy was hit with the image of him playing naked, all the important bits hidden behind his guitar, a mysterious tease to lure her in after a long night of slayage....

Once he began to really play his song of choice, most of the audience seemed to immediately recognize it, because cheers began anew. Xander snorted, and gave Buffy a glinty-eyed look that made her raise her eyebrow at him.

"Baby," Giles sang into the mic, drawing her attention toward the stage once again. She wondered if his nervousness in the beginning had just been an act - because now, his expression was rather aloof. "When I think about you, I think about lo-o-ove,"

A few of the women in the crowd whooped and whistled, and Giles smirked a little, though he didn't quite look at anyone as he sang.

"Darlin', couldn't live without you, and your lo-o-ove," He sang more confidently, letting his strumming of the guitar sway his body now. "If I had, those golden dreams, of my yesterda-ay... I would wrap you, in the heavens, and feel it dyin', all the way,"

Buffy couldn't help but smile as she watched him, eating up the enthusiasm of the crowd. She wasn't so sure that _she_  was a fan of their enthusiasm, but her jealousy was not the same of her childhood emotions. She knew that her Watcher only had eyes for her. She smirked at her own pun, and Giles' gaze drifted toward her as if he could read her mind.

"I feel like makin'," He strummed short staccato beats, staring at her pointedly now, "feel like makin' love... Feel like makin' love," One of the ladies to Buffy's left literally swooned, and her friends laughed and elbowed her, but they looked just as into it. Buffy pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, sending Giles a 'seriously?' expression. His smile broadened as he continued with the chorus, "Feel like makin' love, feel like makin' love to you." With the last two words, he tilted his head a little and winked at her, and then proceeded to give the rest of the room his attention as he moved on to the next verse, though once again not as direct as he'd been looking at Buffy.

"Oh my God, younger-Willow would be _so_  jealous right now," Willow breathed out, looking fairly enamored anyway, and Tara rolled her eyes and laughed.

"I feel... a little dirty." Xander admitted hesitantly. "I'm never gonna listen to Bad Company the same, now."

"I feel horny." Anya commented blandly, trailing her nail along the curve of Xander's ear, and he yelped softly and jumped in his seat, though licked his lips tellingly.

"And if I had, the sun and moon, they were shinin'," Giles sang, clearly amused with the crowd and proud that he apparently still had it. "You know I would give you, both night and day, love satisfyin'," In the following chorus he allowed his tone to drift a bit, playing with the octaves, still sounding... well, in Buffy's opinion, _really good_. But what did she really know about music? "Don't you feel like makin' love?"

Buffy grinned, half-embarrassed as some of the dancing crowd nearest their high-top table had caught on to Giles' looks her way, and were sending her some knowing smirks. Some of them looked fairly jealous, too, and she sat up a little straighter in her seat. She widened her grin toward Giles, giving him a little of her Slayer smirk, and his next line dipped low in the back of his throat. He carried it through, turning it into a gentle vibrato of notes to end the song, and bowed his head with one last strum of the guitar.

Cheers, applause, and many wolf-whistles followed his exit off stage, along with a boisterous shout from someone who offered to take him up on his offer. He merely laughed shyly and bowed his head once more before settling back into his seat next to Buffy's.

The entire table stared at him silently, a wide variety of expressions on their faces. Buffy wondered how amenable Giles would be to a quickie out back. Then again... romps were fun, but a bed provided time and attention that no alleyway ever could.

"I don't know what it is," Xander complained, "but even after _everything_  we've been through, this is still one part of you I just can't quite wrap my head around."

"That guitar isn't quite as warm as mine." Giles mused thoughtfully, reaching for his beer and drinking down half of it in only a few large swallows. "But it sufficed." His other hand was resting atop the table, and Buffy covered it with her own, stroking her thumb against his skin.

"Sufficed?" Buffy chuckled. "Giles, you've made my lesbian best friend _and_  that group of straight guys over their _both_  horny, not to mention probably half of the rest of this place. I think 'suffice' is a little short of the mark." She raised her eyebrow, and he grinned at her, leaning in a little closer to her to ask,

"What about my Slayer?"

"Oh," Buffy murmured, looking down at their hands, stroking over a few tiny scars around his knuckles. "Guess you'll just have to wait and... uh, see." She gave him a sideways look. His smile widened and he laughed, leaning back into his seat again and taking another, smaller, drink of his beer.

"Is it hot in here?" Xander asked nervously. "It's a little hot in here. Refills anyone? Yes, refills - I'll go get them." He disappeared toward the bar. Buffy kept her hand clasped with Giles', but for her friend's benefit she backed off from the flirting. They were all out to have a good time together, hanging out with Faith while she was in town again, and her jonesing for her Watcher could wait until later. Besides, if Anya and Xander could keep their hands off of one another, then so could Buffy and Giles.

By the time Xander returned with two pitchers of beer, they were all trading stories back and forth about happier memories, laughing sometimes together and sometimes at one another's expense. When Giles got up to use the restroom, Faith quickly slipped into his seat and leaned toward Buffy.

"I dare you to go all Caveman Buffy on him when he comes back." Faith grinned, and Buffy gaped at her for a moment.

"I'm _not_  doing that. We're in public! Caveman Buffy was so..." She shuddered slightly. "Unlady-like."

"C'mon, it'd be funny." Faith prodded. "I'll take patrols for a week. I can persuade Wesley that I've gotta stay around for a little while longer."

"That's... actually tempting, but you know how anxious we get when we don't have monsters to slay after a while. I couldn't vacation for a week even if I _wanted_  to."

"Just think of all the other ways you could direct all that energy," Faith prodded suggestively, and Buffy attributed it to the alcohol she's already had that she actually paused to consider that. Faith noticed her chance, and added in quickly, "If you sneak back there right now I'll cover _two_  weeks."

Buffy narrowed her eyes, but Faith didn't blink.

"You're on." Buffy hopped to her feet before Faith could take it back or change the deal. "You know Buffy doesn't back down from a dare."

"Buffy good," Xander nodded encouragingly, failing to keep from laughing as he clasped her back supportively.

"Where's Buffy going?" Willow wondered as Buffy downed the rest of her mostly-empty glass. She'd been distracted in a bit of a moment with Tara, but Buffy only sent her a quick grin before slipping through the crowd toward the back hall where the restrooms were.

"Hm," Anya mused with mock thoughtfulness. "Guy leaves for bathroom break, girl leaves not long after. Crowded club, beer, half-lit hallways, pounding music - " She sing-songed her closing statement, "Somebody's getting a blowjob!"

"Oh God I didn't want to think of it going _that_  far!" Xander whined. Willow shuddered.

"Penises are weird."

"Says you." Faith snorted.

Buffy smirked to herself as she gathered her resolve, trying not to think too much about where she was headed. She hoped that the restroom was otherwise empty, because if there was somebody else in there that she had to kick out, she might lose her gumption.

As luck would have it, the three stall doors were wide open and empty, and Giles was the only one there, washing his hands at the sink. He glanced up when he heard the door lock snick closed, and gaped at her.

"Buffy? What in the devil are you doing in here?" He hissed, and she squared her shoulders and approached him quickly, pushing him toward the nearest stall. "What - what - "

"Buffy _want_ ," She growled as she crowded him into the stall and slammed the door closed behind them. His surprise and confusion drifted into shock, and then dismay.

"Oh - "

She winked at him, then, and he cut himself off, looking only confused again. Well, and very flustered. She slid her hands down his front and to his trousers, tugging at the button and zip. She repeated her words slowly, in a low moan, as she crouched down in front of him and pushed open his pants, sliding her hand inside.

"Oh, _bloody **hell**_ ," Giles gasped, his arms out with one hand flat against the wall behind him and the other against the door, as if he felt the need to keep the stall standing. Or, she figured, keep himself standing.

"Watcher good," She explained, still using the caveman voice because like she said before, she doesn't back down from a dare. "Watcher _mine_." She licked up along the underside of his cock, base to tip, and he trembled as if she'd been teasing him for a long time before this. His length quickly hardened after that, and his fingertips pressed hard, white-tipped, against the stall.

"Buffy," He managed, perhaps about to suggest they take this elsewhere, but there was no way she was gonna let him walk back to their table full of friends with a full-on boner. And she certainly wasn't about to wait until they got home, not now. It was either here, or the car.

Hmm, the car...

Giles was too classy for a quickie in a public restroom of a bar. But his fancy sports car - she'd bet _money_  that he has at least daydreamed about that once or twice. There was a back exit down the hall and Faith wouldn't really know if they snuck out and then snuck back in. Anyway, _technically_  Buffy had already met the requirements of the bet.

She mouthed him slowly once more, before carefully tucking him back into his boxers and pants, zipping them up and standing straight again.

"What - what - " He swallowed, his distracted arousal shifting into a dangerous sideways glare. "You don't p-play with a man's _emotions_  like th-that, Buffy, and think you c-can j-just - "

"Not walking away," She promised, slightly out of breath with her own urgency to continue, and she fumbled with the lock on the stall door before pushing it open. "Come on, not here,"

" _You_  started it - "

They stumbled into the hallway; Giles stumbling mostly because Buffy was half-dragging him, and Buffy stumbling because she ran into a man attempting to enter the restroom.

"Woah, what," He startled in surprise, and then chuckled when he figured he knew what was going on. "Man, I should learn that Bad Company song."

"Sorry, 'scuse us," Buffy most ignored the stranger, leading Giles out the back and toward his car. She shoved her hand into his pocket for his keys, and he yelped as he jumped, giving her an incredulous look as she ignored the reaction and opened one of the rear doors.

"We aren't going home?"

"What, and leave our friends stranded?" Buffy huffed, and gestured toward the prominent bulge in his pants. "And as if you can drive in that condition."

"Whose fault is that?!"

She pushed him down into the back seat and followed after him, tugging the door closed behind her and dropping the keys somewhere beside them as she tucked herself into the floorboard between his knees.

"That can't possibly be comfortable." He told her, but lifted his hips when she loosened and tugged at his pants again.

"It's fine. Actually pretty roomy back here," She wriggled a little teasingly, and put her hands and mouth back on him as if she'd never stopped.

"These are leather seats, Buffy," He half-heartedly protested, already breathless, and she smiled widely at him.

"Guess we'd better be careful then."

"Oh God, I'm doomed." He moaned, and dropped his head back against the seat, and tangled one of his hands into her hair.

And when they did eventually make it back into The Bronze, successfully sneaking in through the back hallway the way they'd left, it was without a hair or thread out of place. The only differences were perhaps the warm smiles on both of their faces, and the fact they couldn't keep their eyes away from one another for very long. Faith and Anya were both amazed by Buffy, and even more so Giles, although they'd been successfully persuaded that nothing had happened more than some serious making out.

"Giles! The stairway, the library, at work, a public bathroom - you're turning into me!" Xander teased joyfully. His smile slowly faded as he thought about it further. "And I'm kind of turning into you. ... Oh God, what if this is some kind of weird curse?"

"Chill out, Baby Watcher," Faith rolled her eyes at him. "You don't even own a tweed suit."

"Not _yet_ ," Giles drawled, pointedly teasing the young man, and Xander groaned in dismay.

"Wait, wait wait wait - what are you talking about?" Tara didn't follow. She knew they were together, of course, but she hadn't been present when the gang had previously stumbled upon the couple. "Did they - at The Magic Box?" She sounded dismayed by the possibility, and Anya smiled widely, pleased to clarify,

"Not in the store, technically. I found them in the training room. Actually, I've found them many times in the training room,"

" _The library_?" Willow hissed, staring at her best friend with wide eyes.

"At UC," Buffy hurriedly clarified, "not _Sunnydale High_."

"Oh." Willow visibly relaxed, but then furrowed her brow. "But - how - ?"

"You know how big that library is," Buffy shrugged offhandedly, giving Giles a quick smirk, "so many corners and shelves to get lost in."

"Ooookay, and on that note," Xander grimaced. "I am never studying in there again." He blinked thoughtfully. "Or at the shop, I guess. And if that's the case, I can't go to Giles' anymore either!" He made a noise of dismay. "No more movie nights!"

"One could hope." Giles muttered dryly, though they all knew better.

An hour or so later, the night eventually wound down and they all headed home; Buffy riding with Giles as she didn't have class the following morning.

"You know... it would be pretty big slap in the face, wouldn't it, if we got a little feisty in the old library, huh?" Buffy mused thoughtfully, her gaze toward her window as she watched the scenery go by.

"A little feisty?" Giles repeated wryly, and then glanced at her and asked carefully, "A slap in the face for whom?"

"Oh, the Council, of course." She turned her head to look at him, and he raised his eyebrow. "Think about it," She shifted in her seat to face him a little more completely. "The place where they time and again kept trying to assert their power over you, and over me. Not to mention that it also just so happens to have been the opening to the Hellmouth. Could you imagine?" She laughed softly, highly amused with herself. "It's like, the biggest 'screw you' shag ever. Like - Winston and Julia against The Party!"

"Did you... did you just make a literature reference?" Giles wondered in honest amazement. "And un-ironically use the term shag?"

"Oh, don't distract from the moment, Giles," Buffy scolded. "I know you. It's just rebellious enough that you would _love_  it."

"I - Wesley still works there, remember, at least until he follows Faith to Cleveland. I don't think he would highly appreciate it,"

"Psh, as if he and Faith haven't used those tables to their advantage," Buffy snorted, and Giles pursed his lips in discomfort.

"I'd... rather not think of that."

"Think about this then, Giles - you, me, a blow against The Party." She leaned hopefully, and his mouth twitched as he tried not to laugh.

"A blow?" He repeated, and then snorted and giggled. "That was a horrible double entendre."

"And it was almost a direct quote from _1984_." Buffy slouched in her seat and pretended to pout. "I'm trying to impress you with my book-knowledge."

"Buffy, so much about you impresses me." He reminded her sincerely. After a moment, he admitted, "Two of my weak spots: you, and rebelling against the Council. That's quite the temptation."

"I can steal a key from Wesley tomorrow." Buffy told him seriously, immediately perking back up.

"I wasn't _agreeing_ ," Giles half-protested.

Two days later, she awoke to find a well-worn copy of George Orwell on her desk, and that night snuck into the high school to find Giles, tweed suit and all, waiting for her in the library. Xander and his construction crew had done a good job - the room looked so much like the original one, right down to the wooden tables and chairs that adorned the place.

"Miss Summers," Giles greeted her with a twinkling smile, "can I help you?"

* * *

END

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagined Giles' rendition of "Feel Like Makin' Love" based pretty much exactly off of Paul Rodgers singing it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6LaSV8F_ZI. Except, of course, in Tony's wonderful voice.


End file.
